Wipro to hire more locals for foreign jobs

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The country’s third largest software services exporter, Wipro, on Friday said that it would step up the hiring of locals for its onsite jobs in respective countries, as it aims at an equal mix of Indian and foreign employees in the next 2-3 years.

“The ratio across the world is about 38 per cent. A year back it was 31 per cent. And we will take it up to 50 per cent,” the Wipro chairman, Mr Azim Premji, told reporters on Friday, after announcing the firm’s third quarter results.

He also said that Wipro has not lost business opportunities in the US because of visa restrictions as it has been significantly increasing hiring locals for onsite projects.

During the October-Dece-mber quarter, the IT major added a net of 5,004 people, taking its total headcount to 1,36,734 employees.

The company reported a sequential growth of 2.2 per cent and YoY increase of 12 per cent in IT services revenue at $1,505 million for the third quarter ended December 31, 2011. Net inc-ome at $275 million increa-sed 12 per cent sequentially and 10 per cent YoY.

Commenting on the company’s positive performance in third quarter, Mr T.K. Kurien, CEO, IT Business, said “This has been a good quarter, with constant currency growth at 4.5 per cent, which exceeds the top end of our guidance range. We also saw broad based growth in five of the six verticals growing upwards of 4 per cent in constant currency.”

Mr Sidhant Rastogi, enga-gement manager, Zinnov Management Consulting, however, said that the lower employee utilisation rates remain a concern and may adversely impact profitability especially in the event of a rupee appreciation.

On the company’s outlook for the next quarter ending March 31, 2012, IT services revenue is expected to be in the range of $1,520 million and $1,550 million, which is a sequential growth of 1-3 per cent.

Mr Premji said this was possible despite the macro economic environment continuing to be uncertain.

“In our view customers are prepared for slow growth in the western world, however they are not arresting critical investment which can give them transformation, cost savings and productivity” said Mr Premji.