Wipro sacks 452 freshers over poor performance

Many Indian companies are joining the global tech behemoths in sacking employees, with IT services major Wipro Ltd being the latest one to sack over 452 entry-level employees following their failure in internal assessments as they completed their training at the company. The Wipro stock surged 0.099% to 403.45 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) today.

The company said it expects its employees to have a certain level of proficiency in their designated area of work. The employees who have been let go failed in the evaluation process initiated by the company. According to Wipro, around 452 freshers have been let go after these candidates performed poorly in the assessments.

The Bengaluru-based company had reported just 2.82% growth in its consolidated net profit for the October-December quarter of FY 2022-23 at ₹3,052.9 crore against₹2,969 crore profit in the year-ago period. Its revenue from operations recorded double-digit growth at 14.35% to ₹23,229 crore vs ₹20,313.6 crore in the corresponding period last year.

Wipro's total headcount as of December 31, 2022, stood at 2,58,744. Its voluntary attrition moderated 180 bps from the previous quarter, landing at 21.2% for the trailing 12 months for the quarter. Thierry Delaporte, CEO and managing director said: "We are continuing to gain market share as a result of deepening client relationships and higher win rates. Clients are turning to us to help them manage an evolving macro environment and balance their transformation goals with cost optimisation. We improved our margins by 120 basis points and our attrition moderated for the fourth quarter in a row."

From smaller startups struggling amid the funding crunch to big companies seeing poor revenue guidance amid the downturn, the tech industry is witnessing massive layoffs. Last week, Google Inc parent Alphabet Inc decided to slash 6% of its total workforce or around 12,000 jobs globally, affecting its teams across the company i.e. from engineering to product to corporate and recruiting verticals. The Google CEO said over the past two years, the company saw periods of dramatic growth. "To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today."

The layoffs at Google came two days after Microsoft Corp announced a slashing of 10,000 employees — about 5% of its workforce. The US-based tech giant said it's looking to cut costs amid the looming threat of a global recession. Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella said the company would align its cost structure with revenue and where it sees customer demand.

Jeff Bezos-led Amazon recently announced layoffs of over 18,000 workers, starting January 18, 2023. Most role eliminations are in Amazon Stores and People, Experience, and Technology (PXT) organisations. Before this, the Seattle-based online retailer sacked staff across its devices and books businesses. Social media behemoth Meta last year had sacked 11,000 employees or 13% of its workforce last year. Microblogging platform Twitter, which is now owned by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, sacked 50% of its workforce and is planning to slash its workforce further.

Snap, the parent company of the social media platform Snapchat, sacked 20% of its staff. HP Inc. also said it is planning to axe 4,000-6,000 jobs by the end of fiscal 2025 as the computer maker looks to cut costs by reducing its global headcount. Software major Salesforce fired around 1,000 employees due to the economic downturn.