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BENGALURU: Wipro has chartered special flights to fly back over 500 employees in the US, UK and Australia whose visas have expired or are nearing expiry.
“A special flight carrying over 100 employees from New York landed in Bengaluru on Tuesday. We are also chartering flights to bring back our employees from London and Germany,” Saurabh Govil, Wipro’s president and chief human resources officer, said.
Govil said the company is working with Vande Bharat mission to bring back some of its employees too. “We bring back employees every quarter. But this time around, we had a backlog as flights weren’t operational,” he said.
TCS has brought back around 500 employees in the US. TCS global HR head Milind Lakkad said the overall repatriation is close to 900 people across different countries. Infosys recently brought back 200 employees from the US whose visa had expired or was nearing expiry. Tech Mahindra has facilitated the return of over 210 employees. A special chartered flight from Dallas landed in Hyderabad on Tuesday.
Govil ruled out any disruption to its business in the US following the temporary suspension of new H-1B visas. “We have over 70% localisation in the US. We don’t see a big disruption or an impact right now.” Wipro said the company will hire from campuses this year, but declined to give a figure. “We have honoured all the offers made last year. However, onboarding will be staggered,” he said. Wipro said in January that it will hire 12,000 from Indian campuses this fiscal, but given the tumultuous situation now, the numbers will depend on deals and project visibility.
Wipro has deferred salary hikes. Govil said a series of actions including lowering subcontracting expenses, reduced hiring and shutting down some global offices had helped improve the operating margin.