Software giant TCS is planning to pay its entry-level engineers more.
Addressing reporters in the city, Ajoyendra Mukherjee, EVP & Head - Global HR of TCS, said India's largest IT exporter, which employs around 3 lakh people, is looking at increasing salaries of those joining fresh out of campus.
“We are planning to do that but it depends on our performance in the remaining two quarters,” he added. He did not go into details of increase.
Currently, entry-level salaries in TCS and other IT exporters are in the range of ₹3.2-₹3.5 lakh annually.
IT companies in the past three years have not increased salaries of campus recruits, despite increase in cost of living.
This was highlighted by a Credit Suisse report last year, which said that entry-level salaries adjusted for inflation are at their lowest.
In 1996-97, a TCS fresher was offered an entry-level salary of ₹1.45 lakh, which in 2013 rose to ₹3.16 lakh, but after adjusting for inflation, it amounts to just ₹1.15 lakh.
However, Mukherjee believes there are other perks.
“While compensation is important, our medical policies are the best in the industry and we have offered hikes of 10 per cent in the last financial year,” he said.
Profit down in Q2 The company, which has been growing at a scorching pace in the past few years, has had a rare blip in performance. TCS’ net profit declined by 5.8 per cent to ₹5,244 crore in the second quarter of the current fiscal, while revenue rose by 7.7 per cent to ₹23,816 crore.
On the issue of workforce optimisation, Mukherjee said that it was a continuous process taking into account employee performance, business needs and aspirations of people.
Mukherjee maintained that the company was on track for 35,000 net and 55,000 gross hires for the year. He added TCS would probably overshoot this as it has already recruited 31,000 by the end of the second quarter.
He also said that attrition cools down in the second half of the financial year. Attrition in TCS is amongst the lowest in the top IT companies, with the company reporting 12.8 per cent attrition in the second quarter of this financial year, lesser than Infosys and Wipro.