Several IT services cos defer salary increments – Times of India

BENGALURU: Indian IT employees have had a mixed bag with increments this time around, reflecting the softer business environment. Infosys and HCLTech have not rolled out hikes yet. Infosys normally announces the hike in June/July, and it’s effective from April. HCLTech is skipping increments for mid to senior employees this fiscal and has deferred hikes to junior employees by a quarter.Wipro has committed to giving a salary increase, but the same would be announced some time in the third quarter (October-December) as against September last year. Tech Mahindra has given increments to junior and mid-level employees, but has deferred the same for senior roles by a quarter.TCS has given hikes of 6% to 8% on an average – about the same as the year before – with double digit hikes to top performers. Among the midcaps, Coforge, Persistent Systems and LTIMindtree have rolled out salary hikes.

The divergent moves by companies are partially reflective of the demand trends in IT. Those that depend heavily on the banking and financial services industry are perhaps impacted more. Infosys has been impacted adversely by the BFSI slowdown, and has lowered its growth forecast for the 2023-24 financial year to between 1% and 3.5%, down from 4% to 7% that the company had guided for in the first quarter. If the actual growth stays within this range, it will be one of the lowest growth rates the company has ever seen. Wipro’s revenue declined 2.8% sequentially in constant currency in the June quarter. Wipro CEO Thierry Delaporte told TOI that in almost every industry, businesses have been reducing discretionary spends in response to the weaker macro environment. Wipro had also reduced its headcount by 9,000 in the June quarter.When asked why HCL deferred hikes, CEO and MD C Vijayakumar in the June earnings call said, “We have had a good wage increase cycle over the last couple of years and given the macro uncertainty and cost inflation, we made this decision this year.”