Women paid less than male

Women paid 33% less than male counterparts in IT industry

The Indian information technology industry is widely regarded to be among the most undiscriminating when it comes to gender. But even then, salary differences between men and women is almost a third.

Industry body Nasscom said this is mainly because fewer women are getting promoted to supervisory roles. Typically, a male employee earns a gross salary of Rs 359.25 an hour while a female worker gets only Rs 254.04. With more number of career breaks in their job history, the negotiating capacity of women in the labour market declines, according to the "Monster Salary Index India IT Sector Report 2014" that was released at the Nasscom HR Summit 2014 in Chennai.

Currently, women make 30% of the total Indian IT sector workforce. "The information is factual but that does not mean that there is a disparity," said Nasscom president R Chandrasekhar. He explained that the IT sector had 65% of women at the entry level, while the mid management and senior management had 27% and 9% of women, respectively.

Chandrasekhar also pointed women find it harder to accumulate tenure due to family obligations. "Women are paid equally when they come back but due to the break their bargaining power is less at times."

Tata Consultancy Services, one of the largest recruiter in the country, said it does not discriminate on the basis of gender. "TCS is an equal opportunity employer. As per the Tata code of conduct, we do not discriminate on the basis of gender, religion, ethnicity and culture," said a TCS spokesperson. Of the 3, 05,000 employees around 32.7% are women at TCS.

Sucharita Palepu, the global head of people policies and practices at Tech Mahindra, said the same about her organisation. "Tech Mahindra's compensation philosophy is to Pay for 3 Ps-Position, Person (based on qualifications, experience and skills) and Performance and this philosophy is applied uniformly to associates from both genders," she said. Meanwhile Nasscom has also indicated that in fiscal 2015 net hiring in the industry would grow by 6% over last year. The industry is expected to add 1,80,000 employees.

"Hiring will be moderately higher and smaller firms will grow faster. The industry 10% more laterals this year," said Sangeetha Gupta, senior vice president of Nasscom.