The Hindu Business Line : It's sunny days for fresh recruits

Salary hikes
Cognizant raises salary offers by 20 per cent for graduates joining in 2007
Wipro has announced a higher salary offer in the range of 10-15 per cent
TCS has increased entry-level compensation by 10 per cent compared to last year.
Satyam, Infosys offering higher package to fresh hires

Chennai , Aug. 7

Top information technology companies will hike starting salaries for fresh graduates by 10-20 per cent.

This has been driven by intense competition among the top companies - Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Wipro, Satyam and Cognizant Technology Solutions - to recruit from colleges as also the fact that starting salaries have been stagnant at Rs 1.8 lakh to Rs 2.2 lakh for the past three years, according to industry sources.

Together, these companies are likely to recruit about a lakh of new employees during this fiscal, and 55-60 per cent of them would be fresh graduates, the sources said.

Cognizant, the US-based software company with development centres in India, increased salary offers by 20 per cent for graduates joining the company in 2007. The company has seen the benefits of this in its recruitment efforts,

Mr Lakshmi Narayanan, President and CEO, Cognizant, told analysts in a conference call to discuss the company's June quarter financial results.

The entry-level salary for engineering graduates would increase to Rs 2.50 lakh a year from Rs 2.1 lakh, said a company official.

Greater pressure

Wipro's Executive Vice-President Human Resources, Mr Pratik Kumar, said at the fresher level there was more immediate pressure. For the last three years, virtually there was no wage inflation on the campuses where the company does bulk of its fresher hires.

The company announced a higher salary offer for the campus recruits in the range of 10-15 per cent, which will depend on the kind of colleges they come from.

The hike is for people joining Wipro in 2007, typically in the third quarter, he told analysts at a conference call.

Other companies

TCS increased its entry-level compensation by 10 per cent compared to last year and all the people who get job offers this year would join the company in the financial year 2008.

In the first quarter, it visited 180 college campuses and got day one slots in 94 per cent of these campuses, Mr S. Padmanabhan, Executive Vice-President and Head, Global Human Resources, TCS, told analysts.

Satyam announced that it would give 10 per cent increase in salary offers to fresh graduates.

Mr T. V. Mohandas Pai, Director, Human Resources, Education and Research and Administration, Infosys, said wages are going up for new recruits, slightly higher than inflation.

The company has made an offer of Rs 2.7 lakh for graduates, and it is looking at large numbers for the next year.

Employee attrition

On employee attrition, Mr Pai said pressure remains, because the industry is going to hire about 3.6 lakh people, including people for the business process-outsourcing sector, this year.

The services industry could hire between 1.6 lakh and 2 lakh people. "We see multinationals come here as some of them have increased their size. So, attrition is a challenge and the market is hot for people," he told analysts.