TCS to ‘release with care’ mid-level staff who fail to fit new roles, says CHRO
TCS’s employee headcount stood at 593,314 as of September 30, 2025, compared with 613,069 in Q1 FY26 — a net reduction of 19,755 employees in just one quarter.
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Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Chief Human Resources Officer Sudip Kunnumal said the company has reduced about 1% of its headcount during the second quarter of FY26.
“We are midway, so we have done approximately one percent of it. We don’t have a target; we are not chasing a target,” Kunnumal said.
He was responding to a query referring to TCS CEO K Krithivasan’s remarks in July, when he said the IT major would let go of about 2% of its global workforce, primarily mid- and senior-level professionals who have not been able to upskill in artificial intelligence (AI) and new-age technologies.
During the recent Q2 earnings call, Kunnumal added, “We will continue to evaluate everyone after all the investments in learning and development that we’ve made. Where we find certain mid- and senior-level people are unable to find the right role based on their seniority, we will release them — with care and support for all their requests.”
He further noted, “We are currently at one percent and will continue to evaluate people who can be redeployed. Those who cannot be redeployed will be released.”
TCS’s employee headcount stood at 593,314 as of September 30, 2025, compared with 613,069 in Q1 FY26 — a net reduction of 19,755 employees in just one quarter. The decline reflects both the company’s ongoing restructuring exercise and natural attrition.
Kunnumal said that TCS has “released” about 1% or roughly 6,000 mid- and senior-level employees as part of its restructuring plan. Despite the cuts, the IT major hired 18,500 people during the quarter and honoured all existing job offers, he emphasised.
Meanwhile, peers reported modest headcount growth. Wipro added 2,260 employees in Q2 FY26, while Infosys saw an increase of 8,203 employees during the same period. Infosys CFO Jayesh Sanghrajka said the company has hired around 12,000 freshers in H1 and remains on track to onboard 20,000 freshers for FY26. HCLTech, on the other hand, added 3,489 employees in the September quarter — a 1.6% QoQ increase, and plans to hire 10,000–12,000 freshers this fiscal.
