Wipro headcount down by 435 employees, attrition declines to 21.2% in Q3

Wipro announced an interim dividend of Rs 1 per share.

Wipro, the last of the four IT heavyweights to report its results for the December quarter, saw its net headcount decrease by 435 employees during the December quarter. The company had a low net addition of 605 in the previous quarter.

This is the first time in ten quarters that Wipro is seeing a net reduction in headcount since the first quarter of FY21, when the company's headcount reduced by 1,082 employees. That was the quarter when the country was in a complete lockdown due to the pandemic.

Wipro’s net addition in the first quarter of FY23 started strong at 15,446 employees, before slipping to 605 in Q2. In the year-ago period, Wipro’s net addition was 10,306 employees.

Last quarter, Chief Executive Officer Thierry Delaporte reported that the company had hired 14,000 freshers during the first half of the fiscal year. Wipro had planned to hire 30,000 freshers in FY23.

Wipro added 3,000 freshers in the third quarter and plans to add 5,000 in the current quarter, according to Chief Human Resources Officer Saurabh Govil. With this, the company falls short of its target for the year.

Govil added that the company onboarded 17,000 freshers in the fiscal year so far.

In FY22, Wipro made its highest ever net-addition of 45,416 employees. In FY23 so far, the net addition has been 15,616 employees.

The company's attrition rate has also continued to fall. Its attrition rate fell to 21.2 percent from 23 percent the previous quarter. On a trailing twelve-month basis, the company's attrition had reached 23.8 percent and has been trending downward since.

“We improved our margins by 120 basis points and our attrition moderated for the fourth quarter in a row,” CEO Delaporte said.

Wipro’s peers Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys and HCLTech have all reported a reduction in attrition, but have also significantly reduced net additions. TCS also reported a net reduction in headcount, and closed the quarter with 1,627 fewer employees.

Along with September's salary, the company also rolled out its salary hikes, and according to an email sent by Wipro's Chief Human Resource Officer Saurabh Govil, 96 percent of Wipro employees were to receive hikes based on performance and meeting the eligibility criteria. This, too, is likely to have an impact on the company's margins.

Wipro is also rolling out promotions quarterly to its top performers, up to the mid-management level.

After slashing variable pay in the first quarter, Wipro rolled out 100 percent variable pay in the second quarter for employees whose payout is linked to the company's performance.