All 18,000 selected students to join by July: Infosys

Software major Infosys today said all the 18,000 students selected from various engineering colleges across the country will join the company in July this year.

“We have made offers to 18,000 students of the 2009-10 batch from different campuses. They will be joining us in July this year,” the company’s Chief Executive Officer S Gopalakrishnan said on the sidelines of a function at the Rajagiri School of Engineering and Technology here.

“We have honoured all the offers we made last year. Once Infosys makes the commitment, we will honour it,” he said.

“Right now, we have slowed down on recruitments. We are still recruiting, but only in case of absolute necessity,” he said when asked about the recession and the layoffs in IT companies.

However, the present 16-week training will be extended by another six to eight weeks, he said.

Gopalakrishnan said the situation would become worse if the recession lasted for a longer period. Companies are asked to perform better, he said, adding this was not the classical layoff. “But if the situation lasts longer, then all options have to be looked into. It is hoped the situation improves by mid-2010 and, in the worst case, by 2014,” he said.

Last year, the industry grew 33 per cent. This year, Nasscom has predicted the IT growth to be 10-15 per cent, he said. Gopalakrishnan added Infosys would expand its presence in India, West Asia, Latin America, South America, Europe and it was already focussing on Japan.

Reacting to the US move to eliminate tax benefits to firms shipping jobs outside, he said the software industry needed to wait and watch before overreacting on the statements made by US President Barrack Obama on outsourcing. Multinationals will come to India, which currently has 2 million IT professionals against 130,000 fifteen years ago.

“We need to wait for details before we overreact. During the elections in the past, similar statements were made in legislature, but the industry continued to grow. In 2001, when the dotcom bubble burst, many state legislatures in the US passed laws saying governments could not outsource. But outsourcing continued”, he added.

The software industry is growing not because of cost advantage, but due to the available talent. There is growing talent of software engineers and professionals. BT and Nano technology are also related to information technology, he said.

He pointed out that Going Green was a huge opportunity and that Infosys was making efforts to reduce power and water bills, reducing transportation costs through video conferencing and reducing the carbon footprint.