Wipro asks freshers to settle for half the salary it initially offered them

In an uncertain global economy and with clients delaying the closure of deals, Wipro has asked candidates who were offered a higher salary package to accept projects at half the amount.

In an email to candidates who have successfully completed their training and who were offered an annual package of Rs 6.5 lakh, the company has asked them if they will take up projects with an annual compensation of Rs 3.5 lakh.

“Like others in our industry, we continue to assess global economies and customer needs, which factor into our hiring plans. Currently we have project engineers’ roles available for recruitments with an annual compensation of Rs 3.5 lakh,” said the email to the candidates, which Business Standard has seen.

The offer was made to all of Wipro’s candidates under the Velocity graduates category in the FY23 batch. The exercise of taking these candidates on boarding for these roles will be initiated from March 2023.

“This is exploitation of fresher candidates. Anyways salary level of engineering candidates in India hired by the IT industry has not increased despite inflation going up. This is not an ideal situation for entry level candidates,” said a senior HR expert on condition of anonymity.

In an email response to Business Standard, Wipro said: “In light of the changing macro environment and, as a result, our business needs, we had to adjust our onboarding plans. As we work to honour all outstanding offers made, this current offer creates an immediate opportunity for candidates to start their careers, build their expertise and acquire new skills — both through the interesting and innovative work that we do, as well as our extensive learning and development programmes.”

The offer to candidates to make this shift is only till February 20. “If you choose to accept this offer, all previous offers will stand void,” said the email.

According to sources in the know the email was sent to candidates on February 16 to accept the offer. Majority of them have taken up the offer as they have nowhere else to go.

“The Velocity programme is an elite assessment programme and we had to give five levels of exams, clear two viva’s and an interview. The percentage required to pass is 60 per cent and only then do we get the Rs 6.5lakh package. All of us did that. But many did not receive the offer letters under this programme and those who received it are now being told to take a lower salary package,” said a disheartened candidate on condition of anonymity.

“It is almost a wait period of 8 months. The level of coding that Wipro made us take was the level of Amazon SD1. They are now asking us to make this choice, what option do we have now,” said another candidate. Sources said that around 3,000 candidates have been impacted. This number could not be verified independently.

This comes in the backdrop of the company letting go of 425 freshers for performing poorly in the assessments after the training period.

HR experts are of the opinion that the global tech layoffs to some extent is playing out in India too. “Companies were expecting that attrition will continue for some more time and hence they hired more and they also thought demand will be robust. But there has been a sudden dip in both the scenarios that is now causing issues,” said Shiv Agarwal, MD, ABC Consultants.

But Agarwal also said that this will not impact campus hiring in a big way. “We will not see zero hiring situation,” he added.