Just six months ago, Indian companies and policy makers were grappling with a record-low exchange rate. Now, the rupee’s unexpected rebound is causing fresh problems. While the currency’s 5.6 percent jump against the dollar so far this year will help tamp down inflation, it’s posing a challenge for the earnings of India’s exporters. For information technology and drug companies already contending with an American clampdown on working visas and a wave of unfavorable inspections by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, it’s another headache.

India’s Information Technology (IT) companies are in the middle of their biggest retrenchment drive. After Wipro fired over 600 staff members in March, it has now been reported that seven of the biggest companies have planned to ask at least 56,000 engineers to leave this year. That roughly amounts to 8,000 employees per company.

As reported in Mint, the companies include both Indian and multinational firms with a large footprint in India.

Infosys has deferred salary hikes for employees to July and even later in case of senior executives as the Indian tech industry struggles to cope with uncertain environment and visa-related issues in key markets like the US.

Typically, the country's second-largest software services firm rolls out increments from April but this year the hikes have been pushed back to next quarter. Infosys has over two lakh employees.

Indian IT service providers such as Infosys and Wipro have tightened performance appraisals for employees, weeding out non-performers, as they see businesses slowing for traditional services, technology shifts towards digital, and growing protectionism in their main markets.

Wipro, India’s third-largest software exporter, has a programme Band Inertia, which looks at scrutinising employees for performance in the same band for longer periods, identify gaps to reskill, and mark out those who are unable to upskill with newer technologies.

Kris Gopalakrishnan, who left IT giant Infosys more than two years ago, has said that he is still emotionally connected to the firm he helped set up.

"You cannot emotionally walk away from something that you have built over your lifetime - say over 33 or 35 years," said the co-founder and former CEO of Infosys.

Head Hunters India, an executive search firm, today termed the Infosys' move to hire 10,000 Americans as an act to 'appease' US President Donald Trump's administration which has tightened the rules of H-1B visa programme to stop its 'abuse'.

Head Hunters India Founder-Chairman and Managing Director K Lakshmikanth also said local hiring in the US was very costly and would lead to offshore job cuts in India.

Infosys, India’s second largest software services firm, is planning to hire 10000 Americans over the next couple of years. The Bengaluru-headquartered company said it would open four new Technology and Innovation Hubs across the United States focusing on cutting-edge technology areas such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, user experience, emerging digital technologies, cloud, and big data.

Infosys, India’s second largest software services firm, is planning to hire 10000 Americans over the next couple of years. The Bengaluru-headquartered company said it would open four new Technology and Innovation Hubs across the United States focusing on cutting-edge technology areas such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, user experience, emerging digital technologies, cloud, and big data.

SAN FRANCISCO: Building on the success of its first-generation AI platform, Infosys Mana and its Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solution, AssistEdge, Infosys on Thursday launched 'Infosys Nia', the next-generation Artificial Intelligence (AI) Platform for businesses.

Infosys Nia converges the big data/analytics, machine learning, knowledge management and cognitive automation capabilities of Mana; end-to-end RPA capabilities of AssistEdge; advanced, high-performance and scalable machine learning capabilities of Skytree; and optical character recognition (OCR), natural language processing (NLP) capabilities and infrastructure management services.

IT major Infosys Tuesday announced that it was strengthening its engineering footprint in Eastern Europe by opening its first office and delivery center (DC) in Croatia.

In line with the company's strategy to establish global competency centers, offering the best talent in the market and making it available to customers globally, this DC also marks our expansion into Eastern Europe's established heavy engineering sector, Infosys said in a release here.

Inviting Real Estate Agents, Job Placements Agents, Educational Institutes, Software Service Providers, Real Estate Builders, Marriage Bureaus, Travel Agents, Restaurant Owners, Health & Fitness Centers and other Local Businesses to Post a FREE Classified Advertisement on Cootera.com Classifieds Website.