Indian IT company Infosys has been accused of being “exploitative” after it reportedly offered jobs to thousands of engineering graduates but failed to hire any of them after two years. The new graduates were reportedly told they would have to undergo repeated unpaid training to remain eligible to work at Infosys.
Last week, the Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES), an Indian IT employee advocacy group, sent a letter [PDF]shared by The Register, to Mansukh Mandaviya, India's minister of labour and employment. It urged the Indian government to intervene “to prevent exploitation of young IT graduates by Infosys.” The letter, signed by NITES chairman Harpreet Singh Saluja, alleged that NITES had received “multiple” complaints from recent engineering graduates “who have been subjected to unprofessional and exploitative practices” by Infosys after being hired for roles such as systems engineers and digital specialists.
According to NITES, Infosys sent these people an offer letter as early as April 22, 2022, after conducting a college recruitment drive from 2022 to 2023 but never hiring the graduates. NITES has previously said that “over 2,000 recruits” were affected.
Unpaid “pre-training”
NITES alleges that those who were offered the job were asked to participate in an unpaid virtual “pre-training” that took place from July 1, 2024 to July 24, 2024. Infosys’ HR team allegedly told the new graduates at the time that the onboarding plans would be completed by August 19 or September 2. But things didn’t go as expected, the NITES letter alleged, leaving the potential employees with “tremendous frustration, anxiety and uncertainty.”
The letter reads:
Despite successfully completing the pre-training, the promised results were never communicated, leaving the graduates in the dark for over 20 days. To their horror, instead of their registration date, these graduates were told to retake the pre-training exam offline, again without any compensation.
The Register reported today that recruits were told they would no longer be eligible for onboarding if they did not attend these sessions. According to The Register, at least one session lasts six weeks.
CEO claims new hires will eventually work at Infosys
Following the NITES letter, Infosys CEO Salil Parekh this week claimed that the graduates would start their jobs, but gave no further details on when they would start or why there had been such long delays and repeated training sessions. Speaking to Indian news site Press Trust of India, Parekh said:
Every offer that we have made will be someone who will join the company. We have changed some dates, but otherwise everyone will join Infosys and there is no change in that approach.
It is notable that a profit meeting took place last month [PDF]Infosys CFO Jayesh Sanghrajka said Infosys is “looking at hiring 15,000 to 20,000” fresh graduates this year, “depending on how we see the growth.” It is unclear whether that figure includes the 2,000 people NITES is concerned about.
In March, Infosys reported 317,240 employees, marking the first decline in headcount since 2001. Parekh also recently claimed that Infosys does not expect any layoffs related to emerging technologies such as AI. In its latest earnings report, Infosys reported a 5.1 percent year-on-year (YoY) increase in profit and a 2.1 percent YoY increase in revenue.
NITES has previously argued that because of the delays, Infosys should offer “full salary payments for the period during which onboarding is delayed” or, if onboarding is not feasible, Infosys should help the recruited individuals find alternative jobs elsewhere within Infosys.
Infosys accused of damaging Indian economy
The NITES letter states that Infosys has already had a negative impact on India's economic growth.
These young engineers are essential to the future of our country’s IT industry, which plays a crucial role in our economy. By delaying their careers and subjecting them to unpaid work and repetitive assessments, Infosys is not only wasting their valuable time but also undermining the contributions they could make to India’s growth.
Infosys did not explain why the onboarding of thousands of recruits took longer than expected. One possible challenge is logistics. Infosys has also previously postponed onboarding due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which hit India particularly hard.
In addition, India is facing a shortage of jobs. Two years is a long time to wait to start a job, but many may be left with few options. A June 2024 study of Indian hiring trends [PDF] reported that IT jobs in hardware and networking declined 9 percent year-on-year, while jobs in software and software services declined 5 percent year-on-year. India’s IT sector saw a decline in attrition from 27 percent in 2022 to 16-19 percent last year, according to Indian magazine Frontline. This has contributed to a decline in the availability of IT jobs in the country, including entry-level roles. As people keep their jobs, hiring efforts have also slowed. For example, Infosys has not hired any campuses in 2023 or 2024, and neither has India-based Tata Consultancy Services, Frontline noted.
Over the past two years, Infosys has been cultivating a pool of people to draw on at a time when India is expected to face an IT skills shortage in the coming years, which coincides with a lack of opportunities for fresh IT graduates. However, the company risks losing the people it has recruited, who are still struggling with financial and mental health issues and are filing requests for government intervention while they wait.
