We will hire 10,000-12,000 from campuses in FY26, says Wipro

CHRO Govil said campus hiring for the current fiscal would be about 10,000.

Information technology (IT) services major Wipro, on January 17, said it will onboard 10,000-12,000 freshers from campuses in financial year 2025-26.

“There could be a quarter changes, but between 10,000-12,000 freshers would be onboarded every fiscal,” Wipro's Chief Human Resources Officer Saurabh Govil told the Press after declaring Q3FY25 results.

He added that campus hiring for the current fiscal would be about 10,000. "We've done approximately 7,000 (till Q3). And we're looking at between 2,500-3,000 in the next quarter."

Wipro’s cross-town rival Infosys, on January 16, said that the IT services major will hire over 20,000 freshers in FY26, signaling demand recovery and revival of discretionary spending in several sectors.

“We don't want to go overboard and make offers that we can't absorb. So we have learned the lesson. We want to go more cautious, but more consistent. That's our approach," Govil added.

The development comes at a time when the Bengaluru-based company is reassessing its lateral and campus hiring models to focus on improving utilisation rate of employees amid lowering attrition, to grow margins.

The Bengaluru-headquartered company will continue onboarding 2,500-3,000 freshers every quarter, he reiterated.

Govil added that the company has honoured all pending offers and resumed regular campus hiring after a "stop-start" approach in the past two years.

Wipro is also using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to conduct L1 (fresher-level) hiring, which is partly aided by humans. "This marks a significant shift in our hiring approach," Govil further said.

Revoking Fresher Offers

When asked about concerns about revoking fresher offers issued to 2022 engineering graduates, Govil said that the move was necessitated by the time gap between extending offers and onboarding candidates.

In industry-wide phenomena, IT companies delayed onboarding freshers of 2022 and 2023 engineering graduates after a weak macroeconomic situation in key markets led to a slump in discretionary deals.

Back then, the company gave freshers the option of taking a pay cut to be onboarded early, and later freshers were terminated on failing internal performance assessments.

Meanwhile, Govil said that the company has taken steps to ensure that candidates remain industry-ready. “We provided skilling opportunities through online platforms and assessed candidates on technical and communication skills before onboarding them,” he explained.

Govil highlighted that the reassessment process was introduced to maintain quality standards and see whether the new hires fit into the evolving demands of the IT industry.

“Given the two-year gap, we didn’t want to onboard individuals who had lost touch. The reassessment ensured we brought in candidates who could meet current requirements,” he added.

The exact ratio of rejections to acceptances was not disclosed.