“Livelihood of thousands of students and employees is now jeopardised. These students applied for a job in Wipro around September 2021,” NITES wrote in a letter dated September 24. ET has a copy of the letter.
According to the letter, the students applied for a job in Wipro in September 2021. After going through assessment & interviews, they received selection emails and offer letters with a package of Rs 3.5 lakh per year.
NITES alleges that in February 2022, the company told employees that they would either have to pay for training which would cost Rs 30,000-40,000 or else need to undergo an unpaid internship and training programme called Velocity for a period of three months. The company promised to upgrade the salary of these students/employees to Rs 6.5 lakh per year on the condition they passed the training program with 60% & above marks.
The unpaid internship ended around July 2022, with the joining of these employees supposed to be completed in August 2022 but Wipro kept postponing the joining or onboarding date, says the letter.
“Now the company has started sending rejection emails to these students and employees stating they were not compliant with the company’s assessment guidelines. These students & employees have rejected offers from other companies,” it adds.
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This development comes even as the boom in hiring in the IT sector has been slowing down, given margin pressures and fears around a looming recession in the US.
Meanwhile, Wipro chairman
Rishad Premji has been highly vocal in speaking out against moonlighting. The company recently
fired around 300 of its employees, who it said had been found to be working with competitors.
