Did TCS downplay mass layoffs? IT workers' union says ‘8,000 employees disappeared’

India’s largest IT services firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is facing criticism from IT workers' union NITES after its headcount dropped by nearly 20,000 in the September quarter, a decline much sharper than the layoffs it had publicly announced earlier this year.

According to company data, TCS’ workforce fell to 593,314 employees as of September 30, down 19,755 from the previous quarter.

The company attributed the decline to a mix of voluntary and involuntary attrition amid what it described as a “realignment” of its operations.

Sudeep Kunnumal, the company’s newly appointed chief human resources officer, told investors late on Thursday that the reduction was a “factor of voluntary and involuntary attrition.”

He hinted that the involuntary component in the reduction is 6,000 employees who have been "released", and added that the company is halfway through its estimated reduction.

The CHRO also said that it took a ₹1,135-crore hit on the severance payout, making it clear that the 2% workforce cut is not a target, but an estimate.

"We continue to evaluate everyone after all the investment in learning and development that we have done, where we find that in mid and senior levels, people are not able to find the right role based on their seniority, those are the ones that we will release with a lot of care and providing all the required support," the CHRO said.

In July, TCS had said it would cut about 2% of its workforce, or roughly 12,000 roles, largely at the mid- and senior-management levels, as part of a restructuring effort.

Following the latest quarterly disclosure, Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES), an Indian IT workers’ union, accused the company of under-reporting the scale of layoffs.

“This is not a minor difference. Nearly 8,000 employees, more than what TCS admitted, have disappeared from the rolls,” NITES President Harpreet Singh Saluja said in a statement. “It points to a deliberate attempt to downplay the scale of retrenchments and mislead regulators, policymakers, and the public.”

NITES said the company’s omission of headcount and attrition details in its initial BSE filing raised concerns about transparency, alleging that the decline could not be explained by voluntary attrition since overall attrition rates had actually fallen.

"TCS has continued to grow revenue during the same period, proving that business performance cannot be used as a justification for such drastic cuts. TCS may present these job cuts as numbers on a balance sheet, but for us they are stories of shattered lives," NITES said.

NITES alleged that employees who have given 10-15 years of loyalty are being cornered, threatened, and discarded overnight.

"This is not restructuring, this is corporate cruelty. TCS has chosen profits over people, turning its workplace into a fear factory and betraying the very workforce that built its empire," Harpreet Singh Saluja, the President of NITES, said in a statement.

TCS, a unit of the Tata Group, has said the restructuring is part of its long-term strategy to build a “future-ready organisation.”

Kunnumal told investors that the company is offering impacted employees counselling, outplacement support, and severance packages “at terms higher than industry standards.”