IT employees' layoff: FITE seeks govt support

The association claimed that 60,000 employees working at various IT companies have received termination orders from service.

Chennai, Jun 16: Forum for IT Employees, an association representing software professionals in various companies on Friday requested state governments to look into the issue of 'terminating' employees by IT companies.

"State governments give land at discounted rates in Special Economic Zones for IT companies to set up their (respective) office. Besides, the government also encourages IT companies to set up offices, as the companies would create huge employment opportunities."

"Therefore, we seek the State governments to come for the support of the employees when they get terminated from service", FITE General Secretary AJ Vinodh told reporters here.

The FITE which is set up in the state of Tamil Nadu has come in the backdrop of sacking of employees by tech services giant Cognizant.

The association claimed that 60,000 employees working at various IT companies have received termination orders from service. he said in next two years lay offs by such companies was expected to be around two lakh across the country.

Forum had already met IT Minister in Karnataka to take steps for the welfare of the employees and added that they would meet his counterpart in Tamil Nadu soon. "We seek the reinstatement of dismissed employees. We want State governments to support the employees as several funds are paid by these people as taxes when they were in service", Vinodh said.

As per the report, Tamil Nadu has around 4.5 lakh employees in the IT sector, with major companies such as Infosys having 17,000 employees in Chennai alone, while Wipro has nearly 25,000 and TCS, which is the country's largest software exporter, has around 60,000 employees in 13 different centres in the state.

PTI