The country's third-largest software exporter Wipro on Wednesday said it will increase salaries for its offshore employees (based outside India) by 12-15 per cent as it looks to tame high attrition rates.The wage hike, effective June 1, will be to the tune of 2-4 per cent for onsite staff (employees in India).
"We have announced wage hikes effective June 1, 2011, which would have an impact on the operating margins... It will be 12-15 per cent for offshore and 2-4 per cent for onsite employees," Wipro Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer Suresh Senapaty said.
Wipro, which has been competing with domestic and global rivals like Tata Consultancy Services and IBM, has been witnessing high levels of attrition over the last few quarters.
"Is it (attrition rate) comfortable, it is not... However, we have been able to bring down the attrition through the year. When you go back a couple of quarters, we were at a level which was north of 23.5 per cent and from there, we have been able to bring it closer to about 20 per cent," Wipro Human Resources Vice-President
Pratik Kumar said.
Kumar added that voluntary attrition came down to 20.9 per cent in Q4, FY'11, from 21.7 per cent in the preceding quarter.
Wipro added 2,894 people in the IT services vertical during the quarter ended March 31, 2011, and 14,314 people during the year. It had 1,22,385 employees as of March 31, 2011.
Rival TCS had said it plans to hike wages by 12-14 per cent for India-based employees this fiscal.
Wipro on Wednesday posted muted fourth quarterly numbers. While its consolidated net profit grew 13.77 per cent to Rs. 1,375.4 crore (Rs. 137.54 billion) in Q4 FY'11, net income from sales increased 18.33 per cent to Rs. 8,302.4 crore (Rs. 830.24 billion).
For the fiscal ended March, 2011, Wipro registered 15.34 per cent growth in net profit at Rs. 5,297.7 crore (Rs. 529.77 billion), while net income from sales in 2010-11 fiscal grew 14.51 per cent to Rs. 31,098.7 crore (3,109.87 billion).
