India’s biggest IT outsourter Infosys will implement annual salary hikes starting this February, said people close to the development. The chief human resources officer has written to employees in an email that employees at and below job level five, or JL5, will get the salary hikes effective January 1, while the rest, those at job level six, or JL6 and above, will get revised compensation starting April.
The HR officer said that the managers had already communicated the ratings in line with laid-down evaluation criteria and the same feedback had been relayed to the human resources team. “We are currently determining the percentage of hikes based on individual evaluations,” the officer said.
The recipients of these increases will be immediate track leads such as software engineers, senior engineers, system engineers, and consultants at JL5. Those who are at the managerial level will take theirs later at JL6 and above but not to include vice presidents. This category also includes managers, senior managers, and delivery managers.
Infosys usually announces salary hikes in June, which reflect from April. This time, however, the process is off the regular appraisal cycle starting from September 2022 to October 2023. The last salary hike was issued on November 1, 2023.
In the financial year 2021-2022, Infosys froze the salary hike to conserve resources. Infosys restarted the annual appraisal cycle in October 2023 and started issuing salary revision letters in December.
This decision has created an optimistic mindset for the employees in Infosys, and the fact that they pay more is expected to raise their hopes and positively impact the current IT job market. According to talent solutions firm NLB Services, the sector is on the path to recovery, and their projections indicated 15-20 percent growth in job opportunities across various industries by 2025.
This would mean that momentum in the IT industry has returned in the second half of 2024, and this should set the ball rolling for 2025. Fresher hiring is expected to follow this growth, while skilled tech professionals, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, data analytics, and cloud technologies, may see demand increase by 30-35 percent, driven by emerging technologies.
While the TCS reportedly cut variable pay for senior employees for the second consecutive quarter in the July-September quarter of FY25, some employees received only 20-40 percent of their quarterly variable allowances, while others got nothing, against nearly 70 percent disbursed in the first quarter of FY25.
