Soaring profits of the IT companies is not reflecting in the wages of IT/ITEs workers
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), one of the largest Indian IT companies has reported a record profit this quarter. Its net profit is up by 4.4% at Rs 6,904 crore and revenue is up by 8.2%. The company has also become the first ever IT company to have crossed the $100-billion market cap. However, this growth has not reflected in the wages of the workers or the employment generated by the company. The same scenario can be seen at the other three IT giants – Infosys, Wipro and HCL technologies.
The increments offered to the workers has ranged between 1 and 5 percent. TCS offered its workers a hike of 2% in select offices and to workers to select brackets. While Infosys offered increments between 1.6 to 1.9%. Entry level wages in the IT sector have remained static for the last decade.
Last year, most IT companies either forced their mid-level workers to accept voluntary retirement or terminated them illegally thereby cutting down their labour cost. This year the addition in workforce plummeted by 76% as in the year ended 31 March 2018, the top four Indian IT firms — Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, Wipro, and HCL Technologies — made net additions of 13,972 employees (taking into consideration the number of people exited in the year), compared to 59,427 in 2016-17.
By instilling the fear of artificial intelligence and lack of jobs citing market protectionism in the United States under Trump rule, Indian IT companies have succeeded in hiring lesser workers, firing mid-level workers and keeping the wages and incentives for workers stagnant, thereby squeezing more and more from their workforce, while continuing to accrue tax sops from the government in the name of generating employment.
