Rishad Premiji, the chairman of the IT Services company Wipro, announced on Monday that the company does not have any plans to lay off employees during this difficult time. “We have not laid off a single employee as a part of the pandemic, we have no plans to lay off anyone. We are driving cost reductions through other means” quoted the chairman.
He also mentioned that Wipro has been reducing costs through “operational means” to go through the challenging time that has been bestowed upon us by the pandemic.
Premji, who took charge of the office last year, put a lot of emphasis on employee welfare and said that “it is of paramount importance to us”. He also informed that the Work from Home facility has been enabled for 95% employees across the world.
Considering the recent changes in the regulations of H1B visa, Premji said that they have already “de risked” their business by hiring locally for their offices in the United States. “Over 70% of the employees in the US offices have been hired locally” , he said.
This news comes in while companies all across the world are resorting to mass layoffs to reduce the costs due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Only a week back, livemint.com reported a lay off of about 18000 employees from Cognizant India, terming it as “performance based exits”. It is also reported that the professional services company Accenture, has laid off about 800 employees from its UK office.
The companies have been using a plethora of jargon, such as “unpaid leave for six months”, as euphemisms to lay off the employees. Other companies which have been engaged in laying employees off, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, are, Ola, Uber, Zomato, Oyo rooms, etc.
