Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India's largest IT services provider, has downsized its workforce by more than 19,700 employees on a net basis in the second quarter (July to September) of FY 2025-26.
TCS released its consolidated financial results on Thursday, 9 October for the quarter ending on 30 September. According to the report, the closing headcount for Q2 stood at 5,93,314; whereas the closing headcount for June stood at 6,13,069. The difference would imply that the workforce shrunk by 19,755 people, even as the IT firm reported a net profit of Rs 12,904 crore in the second quarter.
In July, TCS had announced axing their global workforce by 2 percent or over 12,000 employees primarily at middle and senior levels. TCS CEO K Krithivasan had then told Moneycontrol that the IT giant has been deploying Artificial Intelligence (AI) at scale and revaluating skills in order to be a "future ready and agile" organisation.
Alarming Reduction in Staff, Says Union; TCS HR Calls it 'Extremely Exaggerated'
Harpreet Singh Saluja,President of Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES) issued a statement saying, "This is not a minor difference. Nearly 8,000 employees more than what TCS admitted have disappeared from the rolls. For a company of TCS’s scale, such underreporting cannot be dismissed as an error. It points to a deliberate attempt to downplay the scale of retrenchments and mislead regulators, policymakers, and the public."
Meanwhile, Chief HR Officer Sudeep Kunnumal told news agency PTI that close to one percent of the workforce, i.e. nearly 6,000 employees, at mid and senior levels have been laid off, "whom we could not redeploy in the right role."
On reported claims by various unions of IT employees that the layoff numbers could be as high as over 50,000-80,000 employees, Kunnumal told PTI that "a lot of these numbers are not factual, are extremely exaggerated" and "should be disregarded."
Besides, the Last Twelve Months (LTM) voluntary attrition rate for Q2 stood at 13.3 percent—down from 13.8 percent in Q1. This means, Saluja pointed out, that "these exits were not voluntary but management-driven," making the reduction in the workforce "deeply alarming."
AI-Led Transformation Or Fixation With Productivity?
In a press release, TCS CEO K Krithivasan stated, "We are on a journey to become the world’s largest AI-led technology services company. Our journey is anchored in bold transformation across talent, infrastructure, ecosystem partnerships and customer value."
According to TCS' financial results, 1,59,000 associates had higher proficiency in AI and Machine Learning skills in Q2, as compared to 1,14,000 people in Q1. The firm also announced strategic anf sustained investments:
to build world class AI infrastructure— 1GW capacity AI datacenter in India
in nurturing AI-first culture and talent— the world’s largest ‘Ideate and Build with AI’ Hackathon with 2,75,000 TCSers
"The investments including the building of a world-class AI infrastructure business demonstrate our commitment to this transformation," Krithivasan added.
However, the All India IT and ITES Employees Union (AIITEU) in August told The Quint that the real reason behind the mass layoffs at TCS was the organisation's mismanagement and its fixation with increasing profit margins.
"TCS is using Artificial Intelligence as a façade to hide its mismanagement. The bench policy and layoffs are in fact weapons to optimise its profits,” AIITEU General Secretary Saubhik Bhattacharya had argued.
The Quint has reached out to TCS and will update the story once they respond.
Read The Quint's story on TCS layoffs, where we shed light on the sheer helplessness of hundreds of graduates and experienced professionals, who were allegedly forced to resign without notice or severance; were left in the lurch due to pronlonged onboarding delays, and were provided no support while simply being caught in the AI-led transformation of India's job market.
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