BENGALURU, INDIA — Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest IT services company, has said that it will eliminate about 2% of its global workforce in the financial year 2025-26. This will affect about 12,000 jobs. Karnataka Labour Minister Santosh Lad had a strong reaction to this big cut. On Wednesday, July 30, 2025, he called the measure “alarming.”
Minister Lad said, “This is something unique because all of a sudden 12,000 people, that too TCS, is a very huge number… it is an alarming one.” He said that his department is in touch with the corporation and that he wants to know why they are laying off so many people. Lad also talked about plans to “look into labor law” issues, saying that “leniency has always been given to sunrise companies” in the past.
This cut in the number of employees is one of the biggest in TCS’s history. Most of the affected personnel are mid- to senior-level professionals, although some junior employees, especially those who have been on the “bench” (between projects) for a long time, are also affected. This comes right after news that TCS is putting in place a new “bench policy” that limits unbilled time and requires at least 225 billable days per year. IT employee unions have protested this.
VIDEO | "TCS laying off 12,000 is alarming; will look into labour law leniency given to sunrise companies," says Karnataka Labour Minister Santosh Lad.
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) July 31, 2025
(Full video available on PTI Videos – https://t.co/n147TvrpG7) pic.twitter.com/wtcmbJTatL
CEO Says Not AI-Driven; Focus on “Future-Ready” Agile Workforce
TCS CEO K Krithivasan said that the layoffs are not mostly because to AI-led efficiency gains, despite rumors. Krithivasan told Moneycontrol that the layoffs are part of a bigger plan to make the company “more agile and ready for the future.”
“It’s not because we need fewer people.” We will keep looking for high-quality people, hiring them, and training them. That keeps happening. Krithivasan said, “This is more about where it might be possible to deploy.” He pointed out that TCS has spent a lot of money on training its employees in basic AI (over 550,000) and advanced AI (about 100,000). However, many employees, especially those in senior positions, have had trouble adapting to new types of work, especially those who are used to older project models. This suggests that the focus is on making sure that the workforce is in line with changing project needs and technology changes, rather than being directly replaced by AI.
The corporation has said that the layoffs will happen in stages over the course of the fiscal year. Employees who are affected will get severance compensation, extended health insurance, mental health counseling, and help finding a new job. But IT worker unions including the Karnataka State IT/ITeS Employees Union (KITU) and the Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES) have strongly opposed the layoffs, calling them “illegal” and telling workers not to quit under pressure, citing different labor laws.
TCS’s decision to lay off workers, which is unusual for a company recognized for its stable employment practices, shows how the global IT business is changing because of changes in client demand, the need for digital transformation, and the growing use of new technology.