Former Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai blamed IT companies for the disparity in pay scales between top management and new entrants.
Sharing an article on X (formally twitter), Pai called the development a 'sad state of affairs'.
“Very sad state of IT industry in India. Boards need to stop being mercenaries and reward CEOs, 1%, more, freshers and a better deal for the bottom 50%. This is not the culture in which IT service costs have grown in the past,” he wrote.
According to data sourced by Moneycontrol, salaries of CEOs at India's top five IT companies have increased by 160% over the past five years, while newcomers have seen less than 4% increase during that period.
Annual reports of Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, HCLTech, Wipro and Tech Mahindra have highlighted stagnant wage growth and its impact on economic consumption.
For the seventh consecutive quarter, India's top five IT services firms experienced a decline in headcount. However, the slow pace of this decline in the April-June quarter has generated optimism that these companies could end the fiscal year with a net increase in their workforce, a report said.
Collectively, these five companies ended the first quarter of fiscal 2025 with a total headcount of 1.523 million, compared to 1.525 million at the end of March.
Growth slowed from double digits to low single digits, as the discretionary spending environment turned negative due to higher interest rates and cautious consumer consumer sentiment in their key markets of the US and Europe.