Ayush (name changed for anonymity) was waiting to join Wipro for nearly one year, but his dreams collapsed after Wipro sent a mail stating that that his offer letter has been terminated and his last working day will be January 20, 2023.
“How am I supposed to deal with this? I come from a farming family and took an education loan of Rs 4 lakh for the B.Tech course. In the current scenario, I will not be able to get any other job and the only option I see is to do daily wage work despite having an engineering degree,” added Ayush.
Indian IT giant Wipro has axed 452 freshers that the company had made offers to but had not onboarded. Confirming the news on January 20, Wipro said the freshers were let go because they “performed poorly in assessment repeatedly even after training.”
“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 company said in a statement, as reported by Moneycontrol.
Also read: IT layoffs 2023: From Microsoft, Amazon, Google to Wipro, a look at major job cuts in January
Abhay (name changed for anonymity), who graduated in 2022 and got terminated, told CNBC-TV18.com that he got his offer letter in January 2022 and since then he has been undergoing training, project readiness programme and technical assessment. He alleged that Wipro did not tell the students about their performance earlier and just sent the termination mail.
The rejected students with offer letters from January 2022 argued that a whole year was wasted because of this abrupt exercise.
In an email, Wipro said that the freshers did not meet the assessment qualifying criteria of 40 percent in the PRP.
“As you may be aware, as per the Offer Letter, either party may terminate the employment by providing (30) days prior notice to the other party. Pursuant to the terms of the Offer Letter, we hereby wish to terminate your employment with us by serving upon you this notice of termination,” the email received by CNBC-TV18.com read. The letter further noted that employees were liable to pay Rs 75,000 that the company spent on training them, but the company waived it off.
Further, students have been alleging that, Wipro gave offer letters to many in September 2021-Feburary 2022 and now due to the economic downturn and other global issues it has not been able to onboard all the students — and this termination is just a convenient way of shirking responsibility.
Harpreet Singh Saluja, Founder of the employee union Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES), told CNBC-TV18.com these employees were struggling to join the company that for a whole year — despite clearing interviews, training, assessments and internships. The company has not paid a single rupee to these employees and has now fired them, Saluja said.
NITES has also written a letter to the Labour Ministry asking for prompt intervention and support to safeguard the welfare, rights and families of more than 450 employees.
The onboarding struggle at Wipro
CNBC-TV18.com in October last year reported that the onboarding of nearly 2,000 employees by the tech giant has been delayed for nearly a year. Some students alleged that then too they got emails that their selection had been revoked because they did not meet the assessment guidelines.
One student told CNBC-TV18.com that he got his offer letter in September 2021 after that his velocity training started on April 18, and ended on July 30. He attended classes, submitted assignments, and received an offer letter in July. Then he got an email that his onboarding date was August 8. Finally the company postponed it without giving a further date.
“It’s January 2023 and I am still waiting. They said they will begin it in phases and I don’t know when my phase will come. They have just said candidates will be notified two months before the joining date. I had to resort to finding other jobs and it’s going on side by side,” he added.
Recently, Wipro’s Chief Human Resources Officer Saurabh Govil, admitted in an interview with Moneycontrol that the onboarding process had been delayed. “It is delayed. I'll be honest, and I said there'll be a spillover,” he said after the company posted its financial results for the third quarter of FY23.
Govil said Wipro will honour the commitments it has made, and that onboarding will be based on business requirements.
