After Firing 300 Employees, Wipro Says ‘Some Side-Jobs Are Fine’: Declares Moonlighting As Ethical Issue, Not Legal

After firing 300 people accused of moonlighting, Wipro is now speaking out about its decision.

Chief Executive Thierry Delaporte stated that working for a competitor is a “matter of ethics.” 

He did acknowledge that some “side jobs” are fine.

CEO responds

Whether moonlighting particularly in work-from-home situations could be legal, Delaporte explained, “Our contracts stipulate not taking up a side job with a competitor. 

It is not a question of legal (propriety); it is a question of ethics.” 

“So hear me, I am not talking about things illegal. 

I am not talking about side jobs. 

I am really talking about being in an obvious situation of conflict of interest. I think that our employees understand that,” he said.

Meanwhile, IT minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar supported the practice of moonlighting.

Profit decline

In terms of performance, the company registered a 9.3% decline in net profit due to growing employment costs.

It added 14,000 freshmen between April and September which takes its total employee count to around 2.6 lakh.

Despite the fact that dropout rates or number of people leaving makes a huge negative impact in the success formula for the IT sector, Wipro continued terminating employees.

Dropouts

The dropout rate at Wipro, which had previously been 23.3 percent, was 23 percent in the third quarter.

“During this quarter, we followed a strategy focusing on hiring freshers, and we will continue to follow this strategy,” Mr Delaporte said.

Variable pay

The firm also hiked the salary and promoted over 10,000 staff members.

85 percent of the staff will receive the full amount of variable compensation, which is typically based on both corporate and individual performance.