Infosys CEO Salil Parekh has promised to honor job offers made over two years ago to graduates yet to be employed by the outsourcing giant.

Parekh remained vague about when the not-new-anymore grads would actually start, but he told India's largest news agency, PTI, the following:

According to a complaint filed by the IT labor union Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES) with the Ministry of Labour and Employment, more than 2,000 engineering grads are stuck in limbo waiting for promised jobs at Infosys.

NITES told The Register that the freshers were selected for System Engineer and Digital Specialist Engineer roles during the outfit's 2022/23 recruitment drive. Offer letters sent to the 2,000 carry dates as early as April 2022.

Even though Infosys hasn't been paying these freshers, the would-be employer has allegedly kept them busy from time to time.

Emails to the recruits seen by The Reg request their presence at multiple unpaid virtual and in-person training sessions and assessments. Non-attendance can see their engagement terminated. One of the courses mentioned in the emails we've seen runs for six weeks.

"Despite successfully completing the pre-training, the promised results were never communicated, leaving the graduates in limbo for over 20 days. To their shock, instead of receiving their joining dates these graduates were informed that they needed to retake the pre-training exam offline, once again without any renumeration," NITES president Harpreet Singh Saluja told the ministry in its August 20, 2024 letter.

The labor org also argued to the ministry that by holding the new grads in limbo, Infosys has harmed India's economy.

"The series of actions by Infosys Limited is not only a blatant exploitation of young talent but also a significant setback to India's economic growth," wrote Saluja.

"These young engineering graduates are integral to the future of our nation's IT industry," the org wrote. "By delaying their careers and subjecting them to unpaid work and repeated assessments, Infosys is not only wasting their valuable time but also undermining the contributions they could be making to India's growth," he added.

India faces a tech employee shortage despite offering one of the largest talent pools for IT professionals globally.

Trade association the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) has reportedly estimated India's shortage of skilled professionals in areas such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, and cyber security at around 600,000 workers.

The Reg has asked Infosys to confirm Parekh's statement and whether it has set itself a deadline to resolve the outstanding employment offers.

In its Q1 2024 earnings call last month, Infosys CFO Jayesh Sanghrajka detailed [PDF] that the business was looking at hiring 15,000 to 20,000 freshers this year.

He did not clarify if this number included the 2,000-plus recruits currently on hold. The services behemoth reported headcount at the end of the quarter stood at over 315,000, with utilization of 85.3 percent. The employee attrition rate was 12.7 percent. ®

https://www.theregister.com//2024/08/27/infosys_freshers_wait/