Business Line: Cognizant President Talks About Salary Increments at Cognizant and the Company’s Hiring Plans

Gordon Coburn, President, Cognizant

“The change in full-year expectations has no impact whatsoever on our plans for salary increments,” says Gordon Coburn. “Employees of Cognizant working at offshore locations, including India, will get an average salary increase of 8 per cent this year. This excludes promotions. For onsite employees, it will be a ‘low single-digit' hike. The magnitude of the salary increases will be consistent with what similar hikes by other top players in the industry.”

Coburn says there is no change in hiring plans either. “The company will honor all the offers it made to college graduates who are going to join this year. Certainly, the pace of hiring will be adjusted for the revised guidance,” he says. Coburn says that Cognizant is hiring more in the US — both lateral and college hires. “The company now recruits at 15-20 campuses and has hired several hundred US college students this year. The challenge is there are not enough US information technology workers. It's very simple math. We are not graduating enough. So we can certainly continue to supplement what we can find locally with talent from around the world. We continue to have access to visas. That access has not caused us any revenue leakage,” he says.

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