Former Chief Financial Officer of Infosys, V Balakrishnan, on Tuesday said the information technology industry does not need an employees’ union as the engineers are “well -paid” and can find more opportunities, reported PTI. “Even if there is a union, I don’t think it will impact the industry because people are well taken care of in this industry,” he told the news agency.

His remarks come days after a group of software professionals from Tamil Nadu said they were setting up an employees’ union called Forum for IT Employees. They had started te union after there were massive layoffs in various companies in the sector.

Balakrishnan said the IT sector was not a “traditional” industry, but a place where employees get work opportunities from across the globe. He said the need for employees’ unions was in industries where the work ethic is unfavourable and employees are not treated properly. This is not the case with IT industry, according to him. He said the attrition rate in the IT industry was in double-digits, adding that the talk of creating an employees’ union in the past always “fizzled out”.

The former Board member of Infosys also said the reports about laying off of people in the sector were “exaggerated”. “If you look at all leading companies, none of them are talking about huge losses,” he said. “They are all talking about the regular performance-based attrition, that is normal in the industry,” he added.

Increasing protectionism in the United States and rising automation of work have led to IT giants handing out pink slips to employees. One of the biggest employers in the sector, Infosys, had delayed hikes in its staffers’ remuneration amid speculation that it was planning to fire hundreds of employees.

In a recent letter to the firm’s employees, Chief Operating Officer Pravin Rao had said the compensation review for mid-level employees has been deferred until July and beyond to reduce costs and ensure payments.