Cognizant's 2.5 lakh annual pay for freshers mocked: ‘Salary enough for chai…'

As IT companies attempt to grow their margins, they are offering lower salaries to entry-level employees.

The salaries offered by Cognizant in the company's off-campus recruitment drive have sparked a debate on social media platforms. The firm offered a yearly compensation package of ₹2.5 lakh or ₹20,000 a month, a new decadal low for India's IT sector which typically offers engineering graduates annual salaries in the range of ₹3.5 lakh to ₹4 lakh on average. As IT companies attempt to grow their margins, they are offering lower salaries to entry-level employees- something that has reached an unprecedented lower level.

Snapshot of the job posting by Cognizant.

Why is there a controversy around Cognizant?

In a job posting, Cognizant said that it is offering ₹2.5-lakh package for candidates graduating in the 2024 batch with any 3-year full-time degree programme who are eligible to apply.

The package raised concerns as the amount was questioned by several users on social media. One user noted, "That's barely enough to cover a year's rent in a village and a few packets of Maggi. Cognizant must be running an experiment to see if people are living on chai and hope."

Is this the situation in other IT firms as well?

Cognizant's rival Wipro rolled out the Work Integrated Learning Program 2024 which offers BCA and B.Sc students the opportunity to work with the IT firm while pursuing an M.Tech degree. Wipro's job posting said that freshers will get a joining bonus of ₹75,000 and ₹15,000 as a stipend for the first year and ₹488 as ESI insurance coverage which together is ₹2.6 lakh annually for the first year. With no bonus component in the second year, they receive a stipend of ₹17,000 and ESI coverage of ₹533 a month which means ₹2.1 lakh annually.