Infosys cuts average variable pay for Q1 citing margin pressure

Bengaluru

Technology services firm Infosys has reduced the average variable payout to 70% for employees for the first quarter of this fiscal citing margin pressures it faced.

“The margin impact in the current quarter has reflected on the performance bonus for this cycle. The average bonus payout for Q1 is 70% at an organisation level,” the company informed employees in an e-mail.

The variable payout for delivery and business-enabling functions would be made along with the salary in August, the internal e-mail read. In the email, the company said it was “fuelling growth momentum with investments in talent through hiring and compensation revisions”.

“These investments have impacted margins in the immediate term,’‘ Infosys said in the e-mail.

Rising employee costs have brought tech firms under margin pressures. Infosys’s e-mail comes days after Wipro decided to hold back variable components of its mid- and senior-level executives in the June quarter due to the same reason.

NITES (Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate), a union for technology workers, called the deduction carried out by Infosys as “unethical”

“Under the pretext of an uncertain economic environment, the company has illegally withheld the variable pay component of the employees,” it alleged.

“Infosys’s net profit for last quarter was at ₹5,360 crore, or ₹12.78 a share, compared with ₹5,195 crore, or ₹12.24 per share, in the same period a year back. Revenue or turnover rose 23.6% to ₹34,470 crore in April-June – the first quarter of the current fiscal year,’‘ reasoned NITES President, Harpreet Singh Saluja.

“After posting such financial results, still the company is deducting 30% of variable pay which is clear exploitation of IT employees,’‘ he said.