How many more employees will Ratan Tata’s TCS sack? It says…
TCS has laid off around 20,000 employees as it moves towards AI. Sudeep Kunnumal, head of HR, says the company does not have a fixed target for workforce reduction.
Tata Consultancy Ltd. office. (Representative Picture)
How many more employees will Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) lay off? After deciding to go the AI-focused route, the Tata Group giant handed over the pink slips to its thousands of hard workers and some of the best hands in the field. As many as 20,000 TCS employees have been shown the door or else they are bracing for the worst. How many more are there? Thousands? Hundreds? Or that’s enough! Nobody knows the magic number. Sudeep Kunnumal, head of HR at TCS, made it clear that the company was “not pursuing a goal” in this regard. Tata Group’s IT division evaluates its workforce based on performance and redeployment opportunities, he said. He ruled out any predetermined target to reduce headcount.
TCS: I’m not chasing the target
Kunnumal said: “So almost — look, 20,000 headcount is a voluntary and involuntary attrition factor. So you should see that. But, as we explained, we’re halfway there versus 2 percent, so we’re about 1 percent of that done. And, as Krithi just mentioned, we don’t have a target.” “We are not chasing a goal. After all the investment we have made in learning and development, we will continue to evaluate everyone…”
TCS: We will continue to evaluate people
When asked if the current 1% reduction indicates a similar trend in the next quarter, the IT giant’s HR head said: “No, no, I didn’t say that. Look, we estimate it to be 2%. We’re currently at 1% and we’ll continue to evaluate the people we can redeploy, those we won’t redeploy, and those are the people we’ll let go.” According to reports, TCS’s workforce has fallen below 6,00,000 for the first time in two years. In the quarter ended September 30, TCS reduced headcount by 19,755 employees.
