‘This is not the culture…’: Former Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai slams IT companies over disparity in pay scale

Former Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai has slammed IT companies over the alleged disparity in pay scale between top management and entry-level juniors.

Sharing an article on X (officially Twitter), Pai described the development as a “sad case.”

“The situation is very sad in India’s IT space. Boards should stop being mercenaries, reward CEOs, too, the 1%, and themselves more and more, and give a much better deal to new hires and 50% bottom line,” he wrote. “This is not the culture that IT services grew up in earlier.”

CEO salaries at India’s top five IT companies have risen by more than 160% in the last five years, while freshers saw an increase of less than 4% during the same period, according to data sourced by Moneycontrol.

Annual reports by Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, HCLTech, Wipro and Tech Mahindra have highlighted stagnant salary growth and its impact on economic consumption.

For the seventh consecutive quarter, India’s top five IT services companies saw a decline in headcount. However, the slowing pace of this reduction in the April-June quarter has generated optimism that these companies may end the fiscal year with a net increase in their workforce, according to reports.

Together, these five companies ended the first quarter of the fiscal year 2025 with a total number of employees of 1.523 million, compared to 1.525 million at the end of March.

As the discretionary spending environment turned negative due to rising interest rates and cautious consumer sentiment in core markets in the US and Europe, the growth rate fell from double digits to low single digits.