Among the oldest companies in the Top 20 rankings, NIIT fell from number 12 to 18 due to some of the lowest overall and peer satisfaction levels (ranked 19th on both). Perks and benefits—earlier the company’s main USP—also took a hit due to the recession as its rank there also fell to 19th. Attrition was down from 13.6% to 10.7%, though retention hovered around the industry average, at 88.4%. Branding was affected, with only 1.7% of all employees voting for it as their dream company (2.7% last year). This included votes from 37.1% of its own employees and no votes from non-NIIT employees. However, 34.3% of NIIT-ians expressed a preference for Infosys and 8.6% for Wipro. Employees expressed unhappiness with salaries and gave it some of the lowest comparative scores on image, facilities, job security, technology and training.