Infosys’s termination of 600 young professionals betrays the promise of NATS, NAPS apprentice schemes

IT GIANT INFOSYS has terminated around 600 young professionals (‘YPs’) in the last few months after they failed to succeed thrice in its ‘internal assessment’. These YPs have cried foul regarding what they call “unjust terminations” and have approached the Central Ministry of Labour to intervene to reinstate their jobs and restore labour justice. As IT Industry constitutes a State subject under Schedule VII of the Constitution, the Labour Department of Karnataka was directed to investigate the matter and come up with a detailed report. In its recent report, published in February 2025, it found that “Infosys did not violate any employment laws and acted within Apprenticeship Act and National Apprenticeship Training Scheme (‘NATS’).” The Labour Department also found merit in the argument by Infosys that ‘these professionals were merely ‘apprentices’ and not ‘employee’ hired under the relevant scheme. It noted that to hire them on ‘stipend’ and fire them by ‘test’ was completely legal and they had no right to continue with the employment.While this argument may seem clinical, delving into this exposes very grave and disconcerting questions surrounding youth employability, our education system and human development of demographic dividend. .The Labour Department also found merit in the argument by Infosys that ‘these professionals were merely ‘apprentices’ and not ‘employee’ hired under the relevant scheme..In 2016, PM Kaushal Vikas Yojana (‘PMKVY’) was launched to complement and strengthen the somnolent Apprenticeship Act, 1961. It was conceptualised to attain firstly, the goal of providing accelerations to employment of ‘apprentices’ in industries and secondly, to share the burden with the industries for this national skill building mission. .From uneasy to unbearable: Why work only 70 hours a week, why not 100?.The importance of ‘on-job training’ and ‘real life organizational experience’ were focussed upon for the first time under the National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme and NATS. NATS was to operate within the legal framework of the Apprentice Act. For example, the Apprentice Act provides that “graduate or technician apprentice" means an apprentice who holds, or is undergoing training in order that he may hold a degree or diploma in engineering or non-engineering.” This provision pre-supposes that “only those students” are to be considered for any apprenticeship contract who do not have ‘practical experience’ of classroom learning. Though the Act does not explicitly exclude B-Tech and MBA graduates from its domain, their inclusion shall raise many more substantial questions that I would discuss later. .Questions can also be raised regarding whether Infosys systematically and mischievously devised an ‘ad-hoc’ employment arrangement to get its ‘work done and project completed’ with the aid of government schemes, all without incurring any responsibility to be considerate about the aspirations and morale of these young professionals. .In Infosys’s case, these ‘apprentices’ had already completed their professional course and undergone the ‘internship program’ with the same IT companies during which time these IT Companies had ample opportunity to teach them valuable skills and experience of organisational life. The re-hiring of B.Tech graduates from different channels by the same IT Companies is quite questionable. Another crucial aspect that was highlighted during the Karnataka Labour Department’s inquiry is that “there was no employer-employee relationship”. This finding is also under the cloud as the Apprentice Act uses two crucial words: ‘person’ to refer to ‘apprentice’ and ‘employer’ to refer to ‘any person who employs one or more other persons to do any work in an establishment for remuneration’. The Act does not define ‘remuneration’ although ‘stipends’ is also specie of remuneration. So strictly speaking, there is an employer and employee relationship between Infosys and these ‘engineering graduates’.Finally, we must consider the ‘system of evaluation’ that Infosys deployed to weed out ‘non-performers’ and future of such weeded out ‘youths’. One must ask how the Indian education system, particularly the All India Council for Technical Education that supervises the quality and status of technical education such as the B.Tech degree, where a youth spends almost half a decade in learning and skilling and then undergo months of ‘apprenticeship program’ under Infosys, could not produce ‘talents’ capable of passing the ‘internal assessment’. Questions can also be raised regarding whether Infosys systematically and mischievously devised an ‘ad-hoc’ employment arrangement to get its ‘work done and project completed’ with the aid of government schemes, all without incurring any responsibility to be considerate about the aspirations and morale of these young professionals. .Practically, what can trade unions do regarding the Labour Codes?.Are repetitive tests spaced out in such short durations a viable mechanism before dismissing candidates as ‘unworthy’? Theories of learning emphasise that it requires a reasonable interval of time to absorb new information and put them to application. What shall become of the the self and emotional health of these young professionals who have been branded so brazenly as ‘flunked’ and showed the door out? What about their future employment where their past credentials would be checked by the human resources departments of their prospective employees and how would would they cope with branding of this stigma of being Such predatory practices contradict the intent and skill development framework that was aspired for when the NAPS and NATS were conceived.

Infosys’s termination of 600 young professionals betrays the promise of NATS, NAPS apprentice schemes

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