IT major Wipro has laid off 432 freshers due to their poor performance on internal assessment tests, reported news agency IANS. The report said that all of the impacted employees have received letters of termination from the corporation explaining that they have failed to perform despite receiving proper training.
According to IANS sources, the termination letter stated that the employees were responsible for covering the remaining Rs 75,000 of the company's training expenses. However, the sum is being waived. The letter states, "We wish to tell you that the training cost of Rs 75,000 which you are required to pay, will be waived altogether.”
“At Wipro, we take pride in holding ourselves to the highest standards. In line with the standards, we aim to set for ourselves, we expect every entry-level employee to have a certain level of proficiency in their designated area of work,” the company said in a statement as reported by MoneyControl. The report cited the email sent to terminated employment as stating they had to achieve the "necessary technical criteria so as to demonstrate your preparedness to commence work" as part of the onboarding process.
“To this end, Wipro has designed a program to ensure that it provides adequate training and guidance to all fresher's. We note that you were provided an extensive 5 week training on Project Readiness Program (PRP) followed by a PRP assessment."
Following this, an assessment was done, and if they failed it, a final technical assessment was done as well. If they failed both of these, their employment would be terminated because they did not reach the 40 per cent assessment passing requirement.
Wipro in Q3 posted 2.8 per cent year-on-year (YoY) growth in consolidated net profit to Rs 3,050 crore. The net profit stood at Rs 2,969 crore in the year-ago period. The operating margins of the IT firm stood at 16.3 per cent.
The development comes as Google parent Alphabet announced that it will be laying off 12,000 employees across the globe.