IT sector job seekers face pressure

Source: Business Standard

Information technology (IT) employees and fresh graduates in Kolkata have started to see salary cuts and employee lay offs. IT and ITeS companies wanted either experienced personnel or was focused on cost cutting measures. A few of the IT companies have even put their Bengal plans on hold.

Although the financial turmoil has not yet prompted large-scale sackings in Salt Lake’s sector V, the IT hub for Kolkata, the general notion is that trainee jobs have dried up.

A slowdown in hiring and pay-hike squeeze had been forecast by the IT industry association, Nasscom, confirming the worst fears of young professionals.

“The attrition rates have come down by at least six to seven per cent in the past few months because of the market condition. This will surely slow down hiring,” said Som Mittal, the president of Nasscom.

The industry is working very hard to improve utilisation of resources, which will also have an impact on the need for fresh manpower.

Last year, the manpower growth in IT was around 15 per cent and the headcount had crossed 2 million.

“The average growth in increment, too, will take a hit and come down from last year’s 13 to 14 per cent to a single-digit figure,” said Sangeeta Gupta, the vice-president of Nasscom.

The situation will compound problems for youngsters either passing out of colleges or planning to switch jobs.

The indefinite postponement of the joining dates of a number of fresh graduates from Jadavpur University and Bengal Engineering and Science University, Shibpur, is another indication of the tough days awaiting job aspirants.

For instance, Wipro Technologies, one of the largest IT companies operating in Kolkata, has asked engineering graduates to join its business process outsourcing (BPO) department instead of joining as project engineers.

As project engineers, the students were supposed to get Rs 2.75-3.25 lakh a year, while as a BPO employee, this has been reduced to Rs 1.2-1.6 lakh annually, the students said.

According to a student of JIS Engineering College, Kalyani, the nature of job is that of a "technical helpdesk engineer" instead of "project engineer" as promised earlier.

According to students, the company had given them offer letters to join as project engineers after campus interviews in 2007. They were promised jobs in February 2009 after they passed out of college.

Wipro Technologies vice-president Pradeep Bahirwani clarified, "We are providing the students an option of a role in our BPO division, so that the engineering graduates commence work without delay. The technical support division will join with the same package that was mentioned in the original offer letter. "

Most companies operating in Kolkata are small and medium-size enterprises with less than 1,000 employees.

The city has only six big names in the IT arena at present - TCS, Wipro, IBM, Cognizant, Tech Mahindra and HSBC Electronic Data Processing (the back office arm of HSBC Bank).

TCS, IBM and Cognizant together account for more than 70 per cent of Kolkata’s software exports.

According to Kalyan Kar, MD, Acclaris, one of the fastest growing mid-sized companies in Kolkata, increasing cost pressure will force companies to devise measures to deliver more with less people.

On the other hand, Satyam Computer Services, India’s fourth largest software exporter, has categorically ruled out any investment in Kolkata till the government provides ‘adequate’ land to set up an IT SEZ.

In 2005, Satyam was allotted a 2.77 acre plot at the IT hub in Salt Lake for setting up a software development centre.

According to B Ramalinga Raju, chairman of Satyam, “We need additional land up to 25 acres so we can make it into an SEZ. We are waiting for the Bengal government to give us the additional land. We need to have an HR training centre and administrative building and so the additional land is a must.”

On the government’s part, Bengal IT minister Debesh Das, claimed, “Next month we will hand over 90 acres each to Infosys and Wipro at Kolkata IT Links. We are also trying to get 25 acre for Satyam at this facility or near the neighbouring Jagdishpur mouja.”

Wipro, Infosys employee cost cutting measures

Source: IBNLive

Bangalore: India’s top two IT companies are employing cost cutting measures on the HR front. In an internal communication sent to employees, Infosys CEO Kris Gopalakrishnan has urged the employees as the stake holders in the company to help in cutting the operating cost and controlling expenditure.

The company has set up a portal which invites employees to send in ideas which could range from ensuring all computers and lights are switched off at the end of the day to bigger business ideas which could be incubated.
So far the company has apparently received over 1000 such ideas which it is in the process of evaluating. It also says there could be more such measures in the near future.
Wipro on the other hand has asked the employees hired for the tech services arm to join the BPO arm instead. This it insists is a way to overcome delays in joining dates. This is being offered in Kolkata so far and Wipro says that such an option could also be made available in Orissa and Hyderabad as well.
“We are giving time bound offers which could extend anywhere between 12 to 18 months and they would be then able to join tech services again,” says VP Talent Acquisition Wipro Tech Pradeep Bahirwani.
The company insists there is going to be no change in salary structure for such employees. Employees who don't wish to take up such an offer will face a delay in on boarding by six months. It also says it will meet all 13,500 offers made for the year.

More financial services IT jobs cut

Source: ComputerWeekly.com

IT Job cuts in the UK financial services sector are continuing as companies get themselves ready for worsening economic conditions.

HSBC will cut another 500 jobs and Swiss banking giant credit Suisse has announced 650 UK jobs to go. Both announcements include IT jobs cuts.

Banks have been reducing staff numbers. They see IT and back office functions as surplus to requirements when business levels fall.

HSBC cut 1,100 jobs in its investment banking division in September including 500 front and back office jobs in London.

Credit Suisse, which made a loss in the third quarter of this year of £704m, has announced 650 job cuts including IT support functions.

"Due to market conditions and projected staffing levels required to meet client needs, we are reducing headcount by approximately 650 in the UK," said Credit Suisse.

Citigroup plans to cut its global workforce by 52,000 jobs across all businesses and geographies in the near future. Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit revealed last month that the bank would cut 20% of its employees at the group.

A Citigroup spokeswoman said half of the job cuts will come from the sale of business units. The company had earlier announced 18,000 job cuts when it sold its Global Services unit in India to Tata Consultancy Services for £300m.

Pandit said earlier this year that it was feasible for the bank to take 10%, 15% or 20% off its cost base, especially in IT and operations.

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is expected to make thousands of job cuts as it comes to terms with the economic slowdown. According to various reports last month, up to 3,000 jobs will be cut in the bank's global banking and markets divisions.

Barclays is also expected to cut IT jobs at its FirstPlus loans business as it closes to new business. It will keep its IT infrastructure to process existing customer loans, but is scaling it back.

Bank of America job cuts likely to be worse than expected

It looks like the job cuts at Bank of America could be three times as bad as expected. Business television station CNBC is reporting that up to 30,000 jobs could be cut as Bank of America merges with Merrill Lynch.

If there's any good news in this for Charlotte, it's that the vast majority of the job cuts are supposed to be in New York City.

UNC Charlotte professor Tony Plath says most of the cuts are rumored to be in investment banking.

"It's going to hit the Merrill Lynch side harder than it will hit the general bank," Plath told us. Plath added that even the cuts on the Bank of America side are likely to be mostly out of New York, because that's where B of A's investment banking is headquartered.

Still, Plath says if 30,000 jobs are cut, there's no way Charlotte can escape unscathed. He estimates the Queen City will lose anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand jobs, but says it's too early to tell.

Plath says the timing of these cuts couldn't be worse. They'll likely take effect late this year into the first quarter of next year. During that first quarter, Wells Fargo is also expected to announce job cuts when it completes its expected takeover of Wachovia.

"Both of those layoff rounds are going to hit the market in Charlotte at the same time," Plath said. "It's going to be a bad first quarter here."

Plath says the effect of Wells Fargo/Wachovia job cuts is likely to hit the Queen City harder than the Bank of America cuts will -- meaning the bad news for Charlotte is far from over.

Bank layoffs: J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Standard Chartered and more

Source: The Deal.com
With the recession official, banks are trimming back. Tuesday many banks announced more layoffs. See the latest announcements after the jump.

Many U.S. banks are trimming back before the end of the fourth quarter.
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. will lay off 9,200 or 21% of Washington Mutual Inc.'s employees by the end of 2009. Around half of the layoffs will be before the end of January.

• Bank of America Corp. is expected to cut about 10,000 investment banking jobs at in its combination with Merrill Lynch & Co., according to CNBC.
• Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has cut its Dubai-based work force, a bank official told the Gulf Times.

International banks are also announcing layoffs.
-German-based bank, Bayerische Landesbank, plans to slash 5,600 jobs.
-Credit Suisse Group said it was cutting 650 jobs.
-HSBC Holdings plc said it was cutting 500 jobs at its British banking business and will cut 200 jobs in Hong Kong, according to the International Herald Tribune.
-Standard Chartered plc is trimming 572 jobs at its main office in South Korea and 200 in Hong Kong.
-Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc and Macquarie Group Ltd. are eliminating a combined 260 jobs in Hong Kong, according to the China Morning Post. Royal Bank of Scotland is eliminating 3,000 jobs in its investment banking division. Rumor is that 250 cuts will be in the bank's division in India.

Hit by downturn, Wipro keeps 9,800 freshers waiting...

BANGALORE: Reeling under the impact of global meltdown, Wipro Technologies Ltd has kept about 9,800 graduate engineers, hired from campuses last year, waiting to join the IT bellwether, a company official said here on Tuesday.

"Of the total 13,500 campus offerings made across the country last year, we have taken 3,700 of them so far, while the remaining (9,800) have been told to wait for their turn to join," Wipro vice-president for talent acquisition Pradeep Bahirwani told reporters here at a hurriedly called press conference.
Due to slowdown in the IT industry and tough business environment, Bahirwani said, the company had discontinued campus offerings this fiscal for the time being.
"We have made 8,000 campus offers across the country in about 200 engineering colleges, including IITs and NITs (National Institutes of Technologies) this year as against 13,500 last year," Bahirwani said.

To make better use of the engineering freshers hired but not absorbed, the company has began to offer them the option of joining its BPO (business processes outsourcing) division at its software development centres in Kolkata, Bhubaneswar and Hyderabad for the same compensation fixed for IT services.

"To meet our BPO division's requirements in technical support, we have offered them the choice of coming onboard or wait as long for the joining date at the salary stack made in the offer letter. We hope to see a turn-around in business after 12-18 months to move them to IT services," Bahirwani said.

The company's novel initiative to ask freshers hired for IT services to join BPO division by paying upfront Rs.75,000 for bond backfired in Kolkata, with the hired engineers protesting against such the move and taking up the matter with West Bengal IT Minister Debash Das Monday.

"The option has been given in commensurate with our current requirements, which are more in BPO than in IT services, as technical support role requires engineering grads and not those from science or general stream. There is no compulsion or change in compensation," Bahirwani clarified.

Defending the offer to join the BPO division, the HR official said the decision was taken to give an opportunity to engineering graduates to get on work without further delay. Wipro's global IT services business had 97,552 employees, including 16,500 in the BPO division till the second quarter (July-September) of this fiscal.