Infosys to offer NGO work to staff at half pay

Left without as much work for all its employees, Infosys is offering some of them an option to work with a non-profit organisation for a year and get paid half their salary by the IT major, its co-founder Nandan Nilekani has said.

"We've also launched a program where an employee can go work with a non-profit organisation for a year and we'll pay him half the salary for the duration," Nilekani told US publication Forbes in an interview published online.

Asked if Infosys was still hiring in the gloomy economic scenario, Nilekani who is also Infosys' co-chairman said, "Very selectively."

"In our industry, campus recruitment happens very early. Students who will be graduating and joining us this summer, we offered them jobs last March. So we have 18,000 offers out and we will be honouring those.

"We won't have as much work for all our employees right now, so we're encouraging them to contribute to projects on open source and do more innovative work," he said.

Responding to a query on whether there are new opportunities for Infosys in the current crisis, Nilekani said that the firm is doing more business-driven projects, such as "redesigning the supply chain of a company".

"We're also entering new sectors like pharmaceuticals, natural resources and media, and new geographies like emerging markets," he noted.

Pointing out that 88 per cent of Infosys' revenues come from the US and Europe, Nilekani said that the economic crisis has impacted everyone.

"You can see it reflected in our guidance for this year. We expect an 11 to 12 per cent increase in revenues, and while it's still in double digits, it's a lot lesser than what we've had in the past few years," he added.