Are you an engineer looking for a job? If yes, tech giant Cognizant has an exciting offer for you. An offer too good to be true. They're offering freshers 2.5 lakh rupees, awesome right? But hold off on applying because it's not 2.5 lakh rupees per month, it is 2.5 lakh rupees per annum which comes to around 20,000 rupees per month or 240 US dollars. And don't forget things like provident fund and insurance, after that it will probably be less. Now I know what you're thinking, it must be a hard time for Cognizant, the company must be struggling to turn a profit. Well, wrong again, Cognizant's profits are up 22% compared to last year. They made 566 million dollars in the second quarter and I'm talking profits only, 566 million dollars. Yet, what are they offering to new employees? Less than 20,000 rupees per month, that barely covers expenses.
Cognizant's India headquarters is in the city of Chennai. Now look at the average cost of living there, between 19 and 32,000 rupees and we're talking about basic survival, no luxuries, no holidays, no investments. And this is after getting an engineering degree. Compare this to other jobs. A driver in India gets paid 25,000 rupees, that's the average 25,000 for a driver. A house help gets 20,000 rupees on average and just to be clear, we are not demeaning these jobs.
Every bit of labour has its own dignity and yes, these jobs do not offer upward mobility so a driver gets paid the same over many years. But an engineer gets promotions and pay hikes. Having said that, look at the skill difference. Look at the investment that you're putting in. An engineering course lasts four years, it costs anywhere between 3 to 20 lakh rupees depending on where you've gone to college. So ideally, you would expect better wages, then why is it not happening? There are broadly two reasons. One is oversupply, India produces around two million engineers every year but the economy cannot absorb all of them. In simpler words, there aren't enough jobs. Plus having a degree is not enough. You must have the skills. Look at this report from 2020. It says 80% of Indian engineers are unemployable, 8-0, 80%.
Only 2.5% of them had AI skills. Around 5% had basic programming skills. The rest of them may get hired but their wages will be quite low. And that's one reason for the low salary packages. The second reason is the corporate culture and it's not just cognizant. Let's look at other IT giants in India. TCS used to pay freshers around 3.2 lakh rupees in 2018, in 2013.
3.2 lakh rupees in 2013, that's what TCS used to pay. How much do they pay now? Exactly the same. Infosys used to pay around 3 lakh rupees in 2013. Today they pay between 3 and 5 lakhs.
Wipro is the same story. 3.3 lakh rupees in 2020. 3.5 lakh rupees in 2024. So wages haven't changed in a decade. The rupee's value has fallen, prices have gone up, rent has gone up, yet the salary remains the same. But that's not the case with the top bosses.
Their stories are very different. Cognizant's CEO is the highest paid in India, the highest paid CEO in India. Last year he took home around 186 crore rupees, which is more than 20 million dollars. And why not? He's expanding the business in India.
In fact, Cognizant opened a new campus in Hyderabad. So the company is growing under his leadership, which is a good thing. The problem is the benefits do not trickle down. When profits rise, shareholders and top bosses jump in. But when profits fall, only the employees suffer. Some get laid off, others get salary cuts. Again, this problem is not limited to India. It's probably worse in Western countries.
So the question is, what can we do about it? Some solutions must come from the government. If engineers lack certain skills, you must plug that in, either with new skilling courses or changes in syllabus or new types of educational institutions. Take the IITs, for example. The first IIT was founded in the year 1950.
The idea was to create a new class of leaders in technology, people who could build an independent India. And that bet paid off. Secondly, we need an attitude change. Demanding more salary is not a crime. It is not disloyalty. It is simply looking out for yourself. At the same time, we need to keep improving. A Degree alone is not enough nowadays, evidently you must keep upskilling, you must learn new things, if not the world will leave you behind.
