BENGALURU: Infosys hired a mere 11,900 campus recruits in FY24, a 76% drop compared to the 50,000 freshers it hired in the year-ago period.
“We recruited nearly 11,900 college graduates in the year and ended the period with over 317,000 employees,” Infosys CEO Salil Parekh wrote in the company’s annual report. The IT firm has already skipped campus placements for four quarters in a row.
Engineering graduates are facing a challenging job market, with major IT companies forecasting sluggish growth for the current fiscal.In fact, Infosys has witnessed a sharp decline in headcount for the first time in over 20 years, with a reduction of 25,994 employees during FY24. In the financial year that ended this March, the combined headcount of TCS, Infosys, and Wipro dropped by nearly 64,000.
In his letter to shareholders, Infosys chairman Nandan Nilekani said the initial hyperventilation of AI doomerism and the risk of human extinction by AI advances like artificial general intelligence (AGI) has quietened down. “People have accepted that, like any other general-purpose technology, be it electricity, nuclear energy, the internet, or even a discovery like fire, GenAI has enormous potential for good when explored and advanced within the guardrails of responsibility,” he said. Even as AI has become mainstream, Nilekani said enterprise AI will be markedly different from consumer AI. “Besides, many of the doomsday prophets pleading for extensive AI regulation have revealed themselves to be just protectionists who want to limit the fruits of GenAI to a few companies and investors,” he added. Nilekani is seeking reappointment as director.
Infosys CEO Salil Parekh drew Rs 66.3 crore as compensation in FY24 – a 17.3% jump over the same period last year. Parekh’s remuneration includes Rs 39 crore worth of RSUs exercised during FY24. He received Rs 56 crore as compensation in FY23. In contrast, TCS CEO K Krithivasan received a relatively modest compensation of Rs 25.3 crore, positioning him as one of the lowest-paid CEOs among his counterparts in the Indian IT sector. Wipro’s new CEO Srini Pallia will receive Rs 50 crore as compensation. However, the median remuneration of employees was Rs 9.7 lakh and Rs 9 lakh in FY24 and FY23, respectively.