BENGALURU: Some Indian IT firms have not only deferred onboarding of freshers, but have also left them in limbo without providing any definite joining dates.
According to data from the IT employee union Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES), India’s leading IT firms delayed the onboarding of at least 10,000 freshers who were offered jobs last year and the year before.
Harpreet Singh Saluja, president of NITES, said the labour union has received complaints from candidates who were offered positions at top and mid-tier IT companies such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Zensar, and LTIMindtree. In a recent email reviewed by TOI, Infosys informed these candidates, “We will allocate the DOJ (date of joining) based on business requirements and the DOJ will be sent at least 3-4 weeks prior to joining.” Infosys hired only 11,900 campus recruits in FY24, a significant 76% decrease compared to the 50,000 freshers it hired in the previous year.
Wipro has yet to fulfill campus offers made two years ago. During a recent earnings call, Wipro CHRO Saurabh Govil said, “The year before last, we went to campus and made many offers. We are yet to honour those. We will finish those offers and then hire new freshers. We will induct freshers this year, but we cannot give a number as the macro environment is uncertain.”
In April, mid-tier IT services company Zensar requested candidates to take a test so that it could consider onboarding those who perform well. Last year, Zensar had asked freshers who were still waiting to be onboarded to confirm their continued interest in the job opportunity despite the delay. TOI has reviewed both emails sent to affected employees. Emails sent to TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Zensar and LTIMindtree didn’t elicit a response till the time of going to press.
The delay in onboarding is primarily due to uncertainty in business in North America and Europe, where signs of a slowdown have made clients of these service providers cautious about spending. Recent quarterly results and forecasts by IT firms indicate a significant slowdown. Krishna Vij, business head of IT staffing at Teamlease, estimated that “around 3-5% of freshers hired by the top IT services companies in 2022 are yet to be onboarded. This could be due to lack of project visibility, and employers focus on the required skill sets and job readiness of the candidates.”
