23,000 employees joining Infosys from July

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A total of 23,000 employees have started joining Infosys from July, even as the Indian IT sector continues to grapple with uncertain economic environment in most of its American and European markets.

Bengaluru-based Infosys gave offer letters to 23,000 people last year for joining work starting July, 2012, its CEO and managing director S.D. Shibulal said.

"As our principle is to honour all the commitments which we have given, we are going ahead with joining of those employees," Shibulal told investors in a conference call.

These employees would undergo training for the first six months, he added. The company made a gross addition of 45,605 employees during the last fiscal ended March 31, 2012.

After taking into account attrition and other factors, the net staff addition was of 19,174 persons for the year. For the current fiscal 2012-13, Infosys plans to hire 35,000 employees including 13,000 for its BPO operations.

When asked, the company said it has not yet decided on the campus hires for 2012-13. "Our requirements for campus hiring will be determined by business needs and at the moment, we have not finalised on our plans or the numbers. As per Nasscom directive, we will not commence campus placements before September," Infosys said in a statement.

"We have spaced it (joining) out in a way which is relevant to us. The conversion rate (of hiring and joining) is usually about 80 per cent, which means that we will have about 18,000 to 20,000 people join between now and the next 12 months," Shibulal said at the conference call.

Infosys and its subsidiaries added 9,236 (gross) people in the first quarter of FY13, while the net addition during the period stood at 1,157 employees, taking its total headcount to 1,51,151 people as on June 30, 2012.

On lateral hiring, Shibulal said: "We will continue to recruit laterals (non-campus hiring) to enhance our niche capabilities or to fill in any areas where we have shortage."

The company, which has given promotions to 20,000 people, effective July 1, 2012, however, deferred its decision on wage hikes to October contrary to its peers.

"We have done the promotions and progressions as we talked last time, we have done 20,000 across the corporations. If you look at 2008-2009, we had looked at the wage hike in the middle of the year. We will revisit the wage hike as usual in the middle of the year," Shibulal had said while announcing the company's financial results for April-June 2012 quarter.