BANGALORE, INDIA: The third-quarter financial result of Wipro, which beat market forecasts, indicates that the IT sector is recovering after a period of gloom.

The No. 3 software services exporter in India said that it would give a salary hike this quarter. “The salary hike will be given out in February,” said Pratik Kumar, corporate vice president, human resources, at Wipro, while interacting with the media. He said the hike will be around the industry standards.

Pratik also said Wipro has started going to campuses for recruitment. “We will not go to hundreds of campuses, but the chosen ones,” he said.

In an analyst call Pratik said that Wipro has hired 3000 employees in BPO this quarter. During this quarter the overall hiring was around 4855, which means the overall hiring in other segments apart from the BPO was around 1855 only, which included largely the laterals and a few contract-based.

Meanwhile, Wipro chairman Azim Premji said that the company has got strong business from healthcare, financial utilities, BPO etc, thus helping its quarterly results. "Demand growth is volume led," he said, adding, "We see flat to marginal market investment.”

Premji said around 63 per cent of employees hired in global market were the locals in the respective places.

However, Premji maintained silence on acquisitions and the reports on its plans to go for a $1-billion sponsored American Depositary Receipt (ADR) issue.

The shares of Wipro, which rose as much as 2.1 per cent today to touch a record high of Rs. 753, came down to Rs. 727 around noon, down by 1.4 per cent compared to yesterday's closing of Rs. 737.45.