Wipro's employee headcount fell for the fifth consecutive quarter, ending the September-December quarter of FY2023-24 with 3,500 fewer employees and a 10-month low attrition in a challenging IT environment in which the Bengaluru-based firm reported a drop in revenue and profit on Friday.  

Wipro experienced a succession of senior management exits in 2023, including former CFO Jatin Dalal, raising concerns about leadership retention. Furthermore, the company has sued Dalal for allegedly violating a non-compete clause in his employment contract by joining rival Cognizant within a year after leaving Wipro.

"We are committed to our employees and expect the same from them," said Thierry Delaporte, CEO and Managing Director, at Friday's post-results press conference. There is nothing unusual in the way we have dealt with every case of exit in Wipro in the last quarters. We understand that people quit groups, and we have no problem with that. There are legal responsibilities that must be met. It is not exclusive to Wipro and may be found in any sector," he added.  

According to the statistics announced on Friday, Wipro's closing employee headcount was 2,24,401 excluding (sales & support staff) at the end of December, down from 2,27,929 a quarter earlier.  

"Yes, headcount has come down like the previous couple of quarters (because of) demand constrained environment, driving productivity using tech, bringing in AI, improving utilization," said Wipro CRO Saurabh Govil. “We feel we have the capacity to expand. We will continue to expand as need dictates. We continue to hire for certain technology capabilities even now,” he added.

This is consistent with what other major IT services firms have seen. According to the December quarter figures released on Thursday, a net 5,680 people departed TCS and 6,101 left Infosys. TCS, Infosys, and Wipro, the top three IT services companies, cut their employee numbers by more than 15,000 individuals during the most recent quarter.    

TCS, Infosys, Wipro, and HCLTech saw a combined net employees reduction of more than 21,000 in the July-September quarter, owing to macroeconomic challenges and a fall in their growth estimates for FY24.

In the December quarter, Wipro's voluntary (trailing twelve months) attrition rate fell to 12.3 percent, a 10-quarter low. Attrition at Infosys plummeted to a 12-quarter low of 12.9%, while TCS' 13.3% was the lowest in nine quarters. This is in stark contrast to two years ago when the IT majors faced record-high attrition rates of 20% or higher as demand for tech skills increased in the aftermath of the Covid-19 outbreak. 

Wipro's consolidated net profit fell roughly 12% year on year to Rs 2,694 crore. Furthermore, the consolidated revenue fell by 4.4 percent to Rs 22,205 crore.