Wipro sacks freshers; 452 employees fired after internal test

Wipro, one of the top five IT companies in India, has terminated hundreds of fresher employees over poor performance after an internal test.

The company responded to Business Today’s queries and said, “At Wipro, we take pride in holding ourselves to the highest standards. In line with the standards we aim to set for ourselves, we expect every entry-level employee to have a certain level of proficiency in their designated area of work. The evaluation process includes assessments to align employees with the business objectives of the organization and the requirements of our clients. This systematic and comprehensive performance evaluation process triggers a series of actions such as mentoring and retraining and in some cases separation of certain employees from the company.”

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Sources allege that 800 fresher employees were terminated after the test but the company claims that the number is fewer than that. "We had to let go of 452 freshers after they performed poorly in assessments repeatedly even after training," Wipro told Business Today.

Business Today accessed the termination letter sent by the company to the terminated employees. The letter noted that employees were liable to pay Rs 75,000 that the company spent on training them, but the company waived it off.

"We wish to inform you that training cost of Rs 75,000 which you are liable to pay, will be waived off," the termination letter noted.

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A fresher who was terminated due to poor performance at Wipro told Business Today, “I had got an offer letter in January 2022, but after months of delay they onboarded me. And now they are firing me giving the excuse of the test?"

Another fresher employee who was terminated said, "This is just a convenient excuse for them to fire people."

Earlier this month, Wipro reported its Q3 FY23 results. The company reported a 2.8 per cent year-on-year (YoY) rise in net profit at Rs 3,052.90 crore compared with Rs 2,969 crore in the same quarter last year. The IT major guided for an 11.5-12.0 per cent growth in IT Services revenues in constant currency terms (CC). This translated into guidance of minus 0.6 per cent to 1 per cent revenue growth sequentially in constant currency terms for the March quarter. The guidance was lower than nil-2 per cent that analysts anticipated ahead of the quarterly earnings.

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