How many more employees will Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) lay off? That’s the burning question as the Tata Group IT giant shifts aggressively toward an AI-first strategy, leading to mass layoffs that have already impacted around 20,000 employees.
Thousands have already been handed pink slips, and many more are bracing for uncertainty. But how many jobs will ultimately be cut; thousands more, hundreds, or none? No one seems to know.
TCS HR head Sudeep Kunnumal has made it clear: the company isn’t working toward any “fixed layoff target.”
Kunnumal explained, “The 20,000 headcount reduction is a mix of voluntary and involuntary attrition. We are currently at about 1% reduction midway, against an estimated 2%. We don’t have a target. We’ll continue to evaluate everyone after all the investment in learning and development that we’ve done.”
When asked whether a similar reduction could happen in the next quarter, he responded, “No, I didn’t say that. We estimate it to be 2%. We are currently at 1%, and we will continue to evaluate people whom we can redeploy. Those we can’t redeploy are the people we will release.”
The IT giant’s total workforce has now dropped below the 6 lakh mark for the first time in two years. In the quarter ending September 30, TCS reduced its headcount by 19,755 employees.
While the company frames this as part of “performance evaluation and redeployment,” the scale of the cuts and lack of clarity have left employees unsettled; and the industry watching closely.
