Bengaluru-based IT major Wipro has onboarded 2,900 freshers in the second quarter of FY26, as the company shifts to a ‘train and hire’ model for fresher recruitment. This comes on the back of a full-year target to hire a number similar to FY25, when the company had brought in 10,000 freshers.
Speaking at the Q2 FY26 earnings press conference, Saurabh Govil, Chief Human Resources Officer at Wipro, said, “AI is not a skill that is available in abundance. So, there is a lot of focus in organically building the skill in the organisation… For the freshers, a lot of focus is ‘train and hire’. We are spending time much before they come on board, in terms of working with campuses, their curriculum, giving inputs and trainings, assessing them, and then onboarding them. We try to change from ‘hire to train’ to ‘train to hire’. That helps us speed up deployment on projects.”
Govil added that campus hiring will continue in Q3 depending on demand, even though the number of campus days is limited. “We will look at need and hire based on demand, and we will continue to honour our programme for campuses as well,” he said.
Wipro’s overall headcount rose by 2,260 to 2,35,492 employees in Q2 FY26, up from 2.33 lakh in the previous quarter. Attrition saw a slight improvement, dropping to 14.9 per cent from 15.1 per cent in the preceding quarter.
The fresher hiring comes alongside Wipro’s stable financial performance. The company recorded a 1.15 per cent year-on-year (YoY) rise in consolidated profit after tax (PAT) at Rs 3,246 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2025, compared to Rs 3,209 crore in the same period last year. Revenue stood at Rs 22,697 crore, up 1.8 per cent YoY and 2.53 per cent sequentially.
Peer Comparison
HCL Technologies reported an attrition rate of 12.6 per cent in Q2 FY26, down from 12.8 per cent in the previous quarter, and added 5,196 freshers, increasing its total headcount to 2.26 lakh. Infosys’ attrition marginally fell to 14.3 per cent from 14.4 per cent, with total headcount rising by 8,203 to 3.31 lakh.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) saw a voluntary attrition rate of 13.3 per cent, up from 12.3 per cent in Q1 FY26, while its total headcount dropped sharply by nearly 20,000 employees to 5,93,314, the only rise in attrition among the top Indian IT companies in the quarter. |
