Unpacking Infosys Layoffs: Centre Calls for State Labour Panel Investigation – What It Means for Workers

BENGALURU: Infosys is in the spotlight after the IT employee union, NITES, filed a case against the company. They claim that Infosys fired around 350 trainees at its Mysuru campus. This comes after the Central government decided to step in and refer the case to the Karnataka labour commissioner for review.

The union has urged the Ministry of Labour and Employment to take action to address what they describe as unlawful terminations. Infosys made the job cuts after the trainees, who had recently completed their onboarding, failed to pass internal assessments. Each trainee had three chances to achieve a minimum score of 65% in tests focused on Java programming and database management systems (DBMS).

These freshers, who received their job offers in 2022, are now in training as the demand for IT professionals continues to grow. Training for new hires takes place at the Mysuru campus, where they must pass these evaluations before being assigned to actual projects.

Interestingly, Infosys isn’t alone in this situation. Wipro also dismissed freshers who could not pass a similar qualification test. Wipro’s HR head, Saurabh Govil, explained that the company wants to ensure that new hires, many of whom graduated two years ago, are still up to date with the latest technology skills.