Infosys to fire chronic under-performers

"Like any performance-driven company, we manage underperformance and encourage chronic under-performers to seek other jobs," the global software major said in a statement, denying a report in a section of the media that it was laying-off about 5,000 techies to manage costs.

Clarifying there was no layoff, the company said as performance assessment was done regularly, the number of employees that would be asked to quit would be much less than about 5,000 people the media report quoted.

"For a performance-driven company with over 150,000 employees, this (involuntary attrition) is part of the normal ebb and flow of running a business," the statement added.

Admitting that in crunch times, any company would seriously evaluate employees' performance and assess its impact on the operating cost, a company official said voluntary and involuntary attrition was common in the industry and Infosys was no exception.

Though the company hired 10,420 techies during the second quarter (July-Sept), net addition was 2,610 as 7,810 employees left the company, resulting in 15 percent attrition as against 14.9 percent in previous quarter and 15.6 percent year ago.

Total employees of the company, including its overseas subsidiaries increased to 153,761 by Sept 30 from 151,151 on June 30 and 141,822 a year ago (Sept 30, 2011).