Infosys net hiring negative again as more techies quit

Bengaluru, Oct 24 (IANS) For the second consecutive quarter, global software major Infosys Ltd on Tuesday reported that its net hiring was negative in Q2, with more techies quitting than it recruited as in the first quarter of this fiscal.

"Our net addition is minus 113 despite recruiting 10,514 people, as 10,627 employees resigned in the second quarter," a company official told IANS here.

As a result, the company's headcount worldwide declined again to 198,440 in Q2 from 198,553 quarter ago and 199,829 year ago.

According to the employee metrics, consolidated attrition of the company and its subsidiaries increased to 21.4 per cent in Q2 from 21 per cent quarter ago and 20 per cent year ago on annualised basis.

Attrition of the parent company (standalone) went up to 17.2 per cent in Q2 from 16.9 per cent in Q1 and 15.7 per cent in the same period year ago.

In the first quarter (Q1), negative hiring was 1,811 despite gross addition of 8,645 new people, as a whopping 10,456 resigned, lowering the headcount to 198,553 by June 30 from 200,364 by March 31.

Employee utilisation, however, was at an all-time high of 84.7 per cent in Q2.

The open war between the company's founders and the previous Board since February over corporate governance and severance package to the former Chief Financial Officer (Rajiv Bansal) resulted in hundreds of laterals and middle level executives quitting in droves over the last three quarters.

The boardroom battles also led to the exit of its first non-founder Chief Executive Vishal Sikka, return of co-founder Nandan Nilekani as non-executive Chairman in August and revamp of the Board in August.

"On the employee front, operational efficiencies that gave the benefit, we funnelled many of that towards compensation increases. We had the first phase of compensation increases effective July," said Chief Financial Officer M.D. Ranganath in a statement here.

"We also had variable pay increase during the quarter. On multiple fronts, the quarter under review has been stable and the performance has been satisfying."

Infosys rival Wipro also reported on October 17 that its headcount declined sequentially to 163,759 in Q2 from 166,790 quarter ago due to higher attrition and negative hiring.