Faced with allegations of forcing its India employees to quit, Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTS), has sought time from the Telangana government to explain its position.
Eight employees of the company had said that they were forced to quit the company and had filed a complaint with the Telangana government's labour department, prompting the company to respond.
"I have tried to understand the problem by speaking to both the parties. The management has requested two weeks time to furnish a detailed reply on the issue. The management also said that these eight employees were not a part of the annual layoffs and, therefore, their cases should be treated separately," R Chandrasekharam, joint commissioner of labour (JCL), was quoted as saying by the Business Standard.
The next meeting between the JCL and the senior management of CTS will take place on May 26.
Read: Cognizant going the Infosys way? CTS may lay-off 6,000 Indian employees to hire in the US
IT company employees are going through a tough time of late, with many companies planning layoff people, reportedly in large numbers amid global headwinds such as stricter norms for H-1 B visas and uncertainty in spending by clients.
H-1 B visa holders do not offer good bargain anymore
In another significant development, Cognizant CFO Karen McLoughlin was quoted as saying that the price differential between an expatriate worker holding H-1B visa and a local American IT professional is now almost negligible.
"In terms of the onsite cost, if we are hiring people with the same skill sets — a local worker versus someone who comes on an H1B visa, there really is no significant cost difference when you consider the cost of wages and relocation etc versus the compensation we are paying... And with the H1B visa, you have to remember that there is a prevailing wage that sets the salaries and those are set at market rate, so there is no signifinant difference as you shift the workforce," the Firstpost quoted her as saying during a recent earnings call.
In India, CTS has global delivery centers in Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Coimbatore, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Kerala, Kolkata and Pune, and had 1,55,000 in India at the end of December 2015, according to The Statista.
