IT services major Wipro reported a decline of 6,180 employees in the fourth quarter ended March 31. This comes at a time when IT companies are looking to improve utilisation rate of existing employees amidst lowering attrition, to grow margins.
On a full-year basis, Wipro's headcount was down by 24,516 in FY24, the second consecutive year of headcount reduction. The total headcount for FY24 stood at 234,054.
Sequentially, Wipro's attrition rate remained flat at 14.2 percent on the last-twelve-month (LTM) basis.
Saurabh Govil, chief human resources officer (CHRO) of Wipro said, “Campus hiring is a combination of looking at demand, utilisation and when the hiring is going to happen. We have significantly improved our utilisation this quarter, it’s an all-time high. We hope to increase and sustain that. We have been able to reduce our bench which was there and deploy people faster.”
“The year before last there was huge demand, so post Covid, we went to the campuses and made large number of offers. We are still to finish with all those offers. We have promised and we will first ensure all those offers are honoured before we go and hire somebody else. That’s the plan as we move forward," he added.
While the company plans to intake freshers in FY25, it has not yet decided on a target number.
A similar trend was noted with rivals Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Infosys, who reported a drop in full-year employee headcount for the first time historically. TCS’ headcount in FY24 was down by 13,249, while Infosys’ headcount dropped by 25,994. Sequentially, TCS lost 1,759 employees in Q4 and Infosys lost 5,423 employees.
Massive leadership churn
Well, Wipro had bigger issues to consider in FY24. The company lost more than 10 top leaders and company veterans in 2023 alone, including chief growth officer Stephanie Trautman, chief financial officer Jatin Dalal, Chief Operations Officer Sanjeev Singh, Americas 2 CFO Nithin V Jaganmohan, and others.
Amidst the company’s struggle to turnaround a slowing business, CEO Thierry Delaporte was replaced by Srinivas Pallia as the CEO and MD earlier this month.
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