The IT sector offers some of the highest-paying jobs in the country today, but it has also come under scrutiny for stagnating fresher salaries. For a long time now, college graduates, activists and experts have flagged concerns about how the starting salaries for freshers in IT companies has not increased in years. The issue is especially contentious for service majors like the WITCH companies (a widely-used shorthand for Wipro, Infosys, TCS, Cognizant and HCL).
So when CNBC recently asked TCS’ chief human resources officer (CHRO) Milind Lakkad why fresher salaries have not increased from the Rs 3-4 lakh per annum range for years, his response went viral on social media.
“We are paying based on the talent and we encourage people to come at different cadres,” Lakkad said. “We offer close to ₹10 lakh for innovators. We are hiring people from NITs and IITs where we pay a lot more.”
“It has been the same salary what we have been giving for last so many years,” he admitted. “So I think the point is even when they join, we tell them ‘this is the path you take. You take this path and your salary will double.’”
Footage of Lakkad’s response has been viewed nearly 8 lakh times on Instagram and almost 15,000 times on X (formerly Twitter). The reaction was largely negative as the video became a target for backlash.
“Real Answer: Because along with our capitalist peers and government policy, we have fine-tuned a weak labour market to exploit workers,” wrote one commenter.
“But it's not stayed the same. It's gone down by 60%. He's not accounting for INR inflation,” said one person on X. “On an inflation adjusted level, entry level salaries have declined massively across sectors,” another agreed.
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