Indian IT major Wipro witnessed a headcount decline for the third consecutive quarter, ending the June quarter with 8,812 fewer employees than the previous quarter.
How Did This Happen?
As of date, the company’s headcount stands at 2,49,758.
Interestingly, during the same period last year, Wipro added 15,446 employees in its workforce,
The company’s attrition numbers seems to have continued their downward trend in the meantime.
The Bangalore-based IT company’s trailing-twelve-month rate came in at 17.3 percent in Q1FY24, down from 19.2 percent in the preceding quarter.
Similarly, its quarterly annualized attrition is at an 8-quart-low of 14 percent.
Recently, the IT firm has integrated its Indian business from state-run enterprises (ISRE) sector with its broader IT Services segment.
The merger is leading to headcount for that segment also being added to the total.
No Addition In Headcount
During the last quarter, Wipro had shown its headcount at 2,56,921.
But now, it has now been revised to 2,58,570 to account for the integration of the ISRE business.
Before this, Wipro’s headcount addition in each subsequent quarter fell precipitously during the last fiscal.
Then it added over 15,000 employees in the first quarter, 605 in the second, and saw a decline of 435 and 1823 respectively in the third and fourth quarters.
According to the firm, the number of people it added in FY22 and the first quarter of FY23 was one of the reasons for not adding headcount.
Normally, hiring is an indicator of demand.
So, As there is a fall in demand, hiring numbers were not expected to be significant across companies.
The company was not backfilling all attrition, especially if people are on the bench, said Saurabh Govil, the Wipro Chief Human Resources Officer last quarter.
It appears crucial as Wipro has a large bench.
The company’s Net utilization excluding trainees this quarter stands at 83.7 percent.
The presence of a wide bench is also the reason why Wipro has not gone to campuses in FY23 to recruit freshers.
In the meantime, the IT service providers graduate recruits—those it calls next-gen associates—from FY22 are still waiting to be onboarded.
Previously, Wipro has maintained that it will honor all offers made, but has not committed to any date.
The company did not recruit any freshers in Q1, Chief Human Resources Officer Saurabh Govil said, maintaining that they will be onboard as per business requirements.
When it comes to its peers, TCS saw a net addition of 523 employees.
Contrary to that, HCL Technologies ended the quarter with 2,500 fewer employees.
