TCS layoffs: Headcount reduces by 20,000 in Q2 FY26, CHRO says 6,000 let go

The figures circulating on TCS layoffs are “extremely exaggerated numbers”, Chief HR Officer Sudeep Kunnumal says after the company's second-quarter earnings.

Only 1%, or 6,000 people, have been affected by TCS layoffs, Chief HR Officer Sudeep Kunnumal said on Thursday, but the factsheets of the company’s latest quarterly results tell a different story altogether.

TCS Chief HR Officer Sudeep Kunnumal. (TCS)

“A lot of these numbers are not factual, are extremely exaggerated” and “should be disregarded”, Kunnumal told PTI after TCS’ second-quarter results, adding that the company is “not chasing a number”. “As we speak today, we are close to 1% of people that we have released in mid- and senior-level, whom we could not redeploy in the right role.”

He was responding to a question on the true scale of TCS layoffs, given the widespread fears that the numbers could be as high as 50,000-80,000.

But the factsheet released by Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. for its July-September quarterly results show that the headcount of India’s largest private employer fell by 19,755 to 5,93,314 in Q2 FY26 as against 6,13,069 in Q1 FY26.

TCS headcount has reduced by nearly 20,000 over the course of just one quarter. (HT/TCS)

Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate, an organisation in India that advocates for the rights and welfare of IT employees, was quick to point out the discrepancy.

“This discrepancy is glaring and raises serious concerns about transparency,” NITES President Harpreet Singh Saluja said in a statement shared over WhatsApp. “The company’s own fact sheets publicly available and filed as part of its financial disclosures clearly expose the truth.”

“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.”

TCS’ attrition rate, on a trailing twelve-month basis, stood at 13.3% in Q2 FY26 versus 13.8% in Q1 FY26, according to the quarterly factsheets.

A snapshot of TCS' latest quarterly results. (HT/TCS)

TCS Headcount

According to Kunnumal, TCS hired 18,500 people in July-September 2025 to honour all the job offers that were previously made. “As an organisation, we will continue to honour all the offers,” he told PTI, adding that the company is on track as far as onboarding campus offers go.

When asked if TCS would stick to 40,000-plus hiring target for FY26 as mentioned in July, the Chief HR Officer said, “I don't want to give you a number...based on business demand, we will support and we will try to bring the best of the talent for our organisation to shape the journey.”

TCS Layoffs

In July, India’s IT bellwetherannounced its plans to let go 2% of its global headcount—about 12,261 employees—over the course of the ongoing fiscal, as part of a workplace restructuring to align itself with an increasingly AI world. TCS isoffering severance pay of up to two years to employees whose skills no longer align with the company’s needs.

“In keeping with the values of our company, those affected by our recent initiative to realign skills have been provided care and support as is due to them in each of the individual circumstances,” a TCS spokesperson told Hindustan Times over email on 3 October.

TCS is set to layoff about 12,261 employees, or 2% of its global workforce, this year. (PTI)

"What we had communicated when we initiated this exercise, is that we will do this with a lot of empathy and respect,” Kunnumal said on Thursday. “And I want to say with conviction and confidence that we did that—we created dedicated teams to have extreme empathetic conversations, to be able to help them with that. We did some benchmark on severance packages for the people (who were affected).”

TCS Wage Hike

Now, TCS plans to pay higher bonus and variable pay in the third quarter.

“Basically, it covers all the people who have been with our organisation, who are entitled for the quarterly bonus, except maybe for new joinees.. but it covers practically everyone,” Kunnumal said. “Normally, at the junior level we have been paying 100%, which is what will continue… And for seniors, we will pay a higher amount, which is again based on the individual and unit performance.”

On Thursday, TCS shares rose 1.09% to ₹3,060.20 apiece on the NSE even as benchmark Nifty 50 ended the day 0.54% higher at 25,181.80 points. TCS’ quarterly results were declared after market hours.