Two thousand taken on in India

The Times of India reported a record breaking achievement in employment (believe it or not) on the weekend. Reportedly, June 26 saw a whopping two thousand new Infosys Technologies recruits on their first day of work. This is thought to be a record for a single company on a single day in India, and is certainly a new benchmark for Infosys. Infosys India had hired 906 in one fell swoop one year ago. The new recruits are to be trained at the Infosys global training centers in Mysore and Hyderabad.

The Mysore center, of seating capacity 4,500, reports having trained more than 10,000 in the past twelve months. Infosys was also able to announce an increase in starting wages: Base salaries are now Rs 270,000 (approximately US $5,860) per year, up from Rs 210,000 (approximately $4,557), an increase of more than thirty percent. (Tempering this news was a quote from Infosys India vice president / head of human resources Bikramjit Maitra: “The hikes are mainly to attract talent and also to fall in line with the industry average.”) And Infosys plans further growth, promising again to make good on January’s promise to hire 25,000 in 2006, to make up a work force of 78,000.

It is said that June to December is IT hiring season in India. And analysts are expecting some 20,000 newbies to be hired and trained for ERP, CRM, telecom, datacom, testing and product engineering in India.