TCS headcount falls by nearly 20,000 in Q2 FY26; NITES accuses firm of ‘underreporting’ job cuts

IT major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) reported a significant fall in its workforce for the quarter ended September 30, 2025 (Q2 FY26). The company’s official filing shows a closing headcount of 593,314 employees, compared to 613,069 in Q1 FY26 — a net reduction of 19,755 employees in just one quarter. The steep quarterly decline comprises--company's restructuring exercise, as well as, attrition rate.

TCS's CHRO Sudeep Kunnumal on Thursday said that the company has "released" mid and senior level employees, accounting 1% or 6,000 people from workforce as part of a restructuring exercise.

"As we speak today, we are close to one per cent of people, that we have released in mid and senior level, whom we could not redeploy in the right role," said Kunnumal. He added that the IT major hired 18,500 people in the just-ended quarter. All the offers that were made have been honoured, he emphasised.

In July 2025, TCS CEO K Kirthivasan had announced a global restructuring initiative that aimed to reduce the company’s headcount by around 2% (approximately 12,000 employees), largely targeting middle and senior management positions.

TCS layoffs: IT major to cut 2% workforce over next year, impacting 12,000 employees

Meanwhile, the Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES), an IT union body has criticised the company for what it calls a lack of transparency. Harpreet Singh Saluja, President of NITES, said, “The company’s own fact sheets filed as part of its financial disclosures clearly expose the truth. Nearly 8,000 more employees than what TCS admitted have disappeared from the rolls.”

He further alleged that, “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.”

Even as attrition fell from 13.8% in Q1 FY26 to 13.3% Q2 FY26, the drop indicates that most exits were management-driven rather than voluntary, Saluja said.

Despite the workforce reduction, TCS posted strong financials for the quarter, with revenue at Rs 65,799 crore, up 3.7% year-on-year (YoY), and net income rising 8.4% YoY to Rs 12,904 crore.

Saluja said that the strong financial performance undermines any justification for mass layoffs. “Employees who gave 10–15 years of loyalty are today being cornered, threatened, and discarded overnight. This is not restructuring--this is corporate cruelty,” he added.

Earlier this month, NITES wrote to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and the Labour Ministry, raising concerns over the mass terminations at TCS. The union alleged that these layoffs violated the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, claiming that affected employees were not paid the statutory retrenchment compensation.

IT union body writes letter to Maharashtra CM over mass termination at TCS' Pune office

When Storyboard18 reached out, TCS refuted the allegations. In a statement shared exclusively with Storyboard18, the company described the claims as “inaccurate” and “purposefully mischievous.”

TCS refutes NITES' 'mass layoff' charge, calls it 'mischievous' 'inaccurate'

"The misinformation shared here is inaccurate and purposefully mischievous. Only a limited number of employees have been affected by our recent initiative to realign skills in our organization," TCS said.