Wipro repatriates 500 employees facing visa expiry: Report

Indian information technology (IT) major Wipro has brought home on chartered flights more than 500 employees whose visas have expired or are near expiry, from the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.

The first such special flight carrying over 100 employees from New York landed in Bengaluru on July 15, Wipro President and Chief Human Resources (HR) officer Saurabh Govil told The Times of India.

“We are also chartering flights to bring back our employees from London and Germany,” Govil said, adding that the company is also working along with the Centre’s Vande Bharat mission for some flights.

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He added that they bring back employees every quarter, but the process had been “backlogged” as flights were not operational due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Besides Wipro, other IT majors have also brought back employees facing similar concerns – most from the US.

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Tata Consultancy Services Global HR Head Milind Lakkad said as many as 900 employees have been repatriated – close of 500 of these from the US alone. Infosys also brought back 200 employees from the US, while Tech Mahindra repatriated 210 employees via a special chartered flight from Dallas, Texas to Hyderabad – which landed on July 14.

But Govil denied that temporary suspension of H-1B visas is the cause. Stating: “We have over 70 percent localisation in the US and do not see big disruption or an impact right now. The company will hire from campuses this year in a staggered manner.” He said that last year’s offers have been honoured but declined to give a figure for this year, as per the report.

The company in January had said it will hire 12,000 posts via campus placements in India, but the process seems shaky given the current coronavirus situation.