Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest IT services provider, will lay off two percent of its workforce in a move that will affect around 12,000 employees. The layoffs will primarily affect middle and senior management, Reuters reported, citing the company on Sunday.
Layoffs at TCS
Considered the bellwether of the Indian IT industry, TCS’s announcement has sounded alarm bells for techies who have seen a veritable bloodbath in terms of layoffs over the last few years. TCS chief executive officer and managing director K Krithivasan told Moneycontrol that AI is not to be blamed for the workforce reduction.
“No, this is not because of AI giving some 20 percent productivity gains. We are not doing that. This is driven by where there is a skill mismatch, or, where we think that we have not been able to deploy someone,” said Krithivasan.
“We trained a lot of people. We have trained about 550,000 people at the initial skills, 100,000 at the advanced skills. Essentially, after training whether we have the deployment feasibility issue.
“So, some of them could be trained, but maybe we are not able to train beyond level 1 and level 2 skills, because when the person is at a very senior person they may not be able to use the entry level skills,” he explained.
Alarm bells for senior employees
{{/usCountry}}“So, some of them could be trained, but maybe we are not able to train beyond level 1 and level 2 skills, because when the person is at a very senior person they may not be able to use the entry level skills,” he explained.
Alarm bells for senior employees
{{/usCountry}}The news of layoffs affecting middle and senior level employees, coupled with TCS CEO’s statement, have reignited concerns about the ‘shelf life’ of a techie in what many are coming to see as an oversaturated industry.
“Always remember: When managers are not billable, they are huge cost to the company,” wrote one X user. “Cost of one manager = cost of five junior developers”.
“If you're 45 or approaching that age, surviving in the IT industry becomes increasingly difficult. You could be shown the door at any time,” X user Rohit Kumar Gupta added.
“Read what TCS said, middle and senior management positions. These guys are not on bench. TCS wants to cut costs and they will save max from those positions not a guy on bench,” a user noted.
“TCS layoffs should serve as a warning shot for all Mid and Senior level IT professionals. In my limited experience, many in this layers have stopped learning and have become pen pushers, thus increasing the risk of getting laid off,” X user Mohan Kumar warned.