PRECISELY WHAT AILS the Indian IT sector is anyone’s guess today. But one overarching challenge the sector—noted to be a top global outsourcing IT/ITeS hub—faces today is related to human resources. What was once known to attract top talent from across the country is now embroiled in a protracted controversy over issues such as stunted salary hikes, cutbacks on variable pay and inordinate delays in on-boarding new employees. The sector is also witnessing a steep downfall in employee loyalty as high attrition, moonlighting, and quiet quitting become maladies for the industry in the post-Covid-19 era.
Over the past decade, the IT sector has witnessed a stagnation of sorts when it comes to salary hikes for freshers and the lower band of employees. An analysis of average salary packages of CEOs and freshers, per companies’ earnings reports and publicly available data, shows that fresher salaries have increased only 46.94 per cent in the past 10 years while the salary of CEOs has zoomed a whopping 1,492.27 per cent.
This huge discrepancy in salaries between the CXOs, “There has been no increase in compensation for freshers. They are being paid the same ₹3.5-4 lakh that the companies were paying 10-12 years ago. During this time, the salary for managers and seniors has gone up 4x, 5x, 7x.”
