Infosys Offers NGO Work To Staff

Left without as muchwork for all its employees, Infosys is offering some of them an option to workwith a non-profit organisation for a year and get paid half their salary by theIT major, its co-founder Nandan Nilekani has said.

"We've also launched a programwhere an employee can go work with a non-profit organisation for a year andwe'll pay him half the salary for the duration," Nilekani told USpublication Forbes in an interview published online.

Asked if Infosys was still hiring in the gloomy economic scenario, Nilekani whois also Infosys' co-chairman said, "Very selectively."

"In our industry, campus recruitment happens very early. Students who willbe graduating and joining us this summer, we offered them jobs last March. Sowe have 18,000 offers out and we will be honouring those.

"We won't have as much work for all our employees right now, so we'reencouraging them to contribute to projects on open source and do moreinnovative work," he said.

Responding to a query on whether there are new opportunities for Infosys in thecurrent crisis, Nilekani said that the firm is doing more business-drivenprojects, such as "redesigning the supply chain of a company".

"We're also entering new sectors like pharmaceuticals, natural resourcesand media, and new geographies like emerging markets," he noted. Pointing out that 88 per cent of Infosys' revenues come from the US and Europe,Nilekani said that the economic crisis has impacted everyone.

"You can see it reflected in our guidance for this year. We expect an 11to 12 per cent increase in revenues, and while it's still in double digits,it's a lot lesser than what we've had in the past few years," he added.