Zoho Announced No Salary Hikes This Year, Founder Sridhar Vembu Hints at Tough Times Ahead

No salary increment this year! The post got huge attention because the Zoho founder has said that the company will not have the annual salary increment and has a message to share.

According to founder of Zoho, Sridhar Vembu, the employees of the company will not receive their usual annual salary increment this year. He has shared an X post where he explains why. According to him, increasing business expenses, greater server costs and rising spending on artifical intelligence, that is AI, have made it more difficult for the company to regulate costs.

Also Read

Shubman Gill and Shafali Verma Named ICC Player of the Month for September

Train Release Date OUT: Vijay Sethupathi’s Action Thriller to Premiere in December After Prolonged Delay

Koffee With Karan Season 9: Salman Khan to Grace the First Episode of the Karan Johar-Hosted Talk Show

He further cautioned that software employment has an uncertain future as corporations start utilizing AI tools to develop more affordable alternatives to existing products. He stated that Zoho is attempting to avoid significant job losses while dealing with the issue.

Sridhar Vembu’s X Post:

The business outlook for software is uncertain and AI has raised costs dramatically with a) massive 4-fold increase in server prices which we need for data centers b) AI usage increasing rapidly, leading to much higher expenses, which we are trying to control.

On top of that is the challenging geopolitical backdrop. We have cut down on our marketing budget. We have also told our employees that we cannot have our usual pay increase this year.

I have apologized for not being able to avoid this. We will work hard to avoid mass layoffs but the outlook for software jobs in general is grim.

We have not been growing our employee count for 18 months now. Most of our employees understand the situation. I am thankful to them. We are in the middle of reinventing ourselves. The next 3-5 years will decide how our reinvention has worked. Please pray for us.

The business outlook for software is uncertain and AI has raised costs dramatically with a) massive 4-fold increase in server prices which we need for data centers b) AI usage increasing rapidly, leading to much higher expenses, which we are trying to control. On top of that is the challenging geopolitical backdrop. We have cut down on our marketing budget. We have also told our employees that we cannot have our usual pay increase this year. I have apolgized for not being able to avoid this. We will work hard to avoid mass layoffs but the outlook for software jobs in general is grim. We have not been growing our employee count for 18 months now. Most of our employees understand the situation. I am thankful to them. We are in the middle of reinventing ourselves. The next 3-5 years will decide how our reinvention has worked. Please pray for us 🙏 — Sridhar Vembu (@svembu) October 12, 2026

Zoho has chosen not to give the usual salary hikes this year and has lowered its marketing expenditure in order to keep expenses under control. He stated that he had expressed regret to the employees for the choice.