Indian IT giant TCS is making its largest layoff in its history
As of Q2 2025, TCS had 613,000 employees globally.
Around the world, tech companies have had to cut jobs across various departments, roles, and locations this year. And it's not just startups alone doing the axing. We're talking big tech giants making significant cuts to their workforce, all because of AI and automation.
From Intel cutting over 27,000 jobs to Microsoft laying off over 15,000 people so far in 2025, it's a continuation of a pattern we've seen over the last three years in the technology industry globally, which saw over 165,000 jobs cut in 2022, over 264,000 in 2023, and more than 152,000 jobs lost in 2024, per data from Layoffs.fyi. As of July 2025, almost 100,000 layoffs have happened in the tech industry globally.
The latest round of layoffs comes from Indian IT services giant, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which is reducing its workforce by 2% and will affect over 12,000 of its employees worldwide. Although the company has made layoffs in the past, such as its 2012 layoff of almost 2,500 workers due to poor performance, the latest job cuts are of a more significant strategic change.
Ogbonda Chivumnovu
Why is TCS laying off over 12,000 employees?
According to the company, the cuts are aimed at middle and upper management positions in different business areas and countries, and TCS wants to make sure that the transition goes well and doesn't affect customer services. "This transition is being planned with due care to ensure there is no impact on service delivery to our clients," the company said in a statement.
The move for the IT services company to adjust its workforce is seen by experts as a way to keep its profit margins and its prices low in a very competitive market where clients want to see price cuts of 20 to 30 per cent. That's because clients in India's $283 billion IT sector have been holding off on spending on technology that isn't necessary because of low demand, high inflation, and uncertainty about U.S. trade policies.
How is TCS fighting employee turnover?
As of the last quarter (April to June), TCS had 613,000 employees globally, and just a few weeks ago, the IT services company said that it was committed to giving its large workforce pay raises, though no specific date was given. The company has also seen a "concerning" rise in the number of employees leaving. In the April-June quarter, the annual turnover rate hit 13.8%, slightly higher than the 13.3% rate in the previous quarter.
To fight this, TCS wants to keep its best employees first, knowing how hard it is to find new people with the right skills. The company's staff are being retrained and moved around the company to make it more flexible and ready for the future, especially when it comes to Artificial Intelligence (AI). It may also stop hiring people from outside the company for now, waiting for demand to rise before starting up those efforts again.
While AI promises fantastic new ideas and opens up new, very specialized jobs, it also speeds up the process of automating jobs. As companies continue to pour resources into AI and the adoption of the technology, the disruption it is causing is indeed noticeable, especially with the massive global layoffs.
Emmanuel Oyedeji
Now the question is: will businesses and their employees adapt? For most people, it could mean putting more focus on reskilling and upskilling to meet the new needs caused by AI. For companies, they'll need to find a balance between making things more efficient and taking care of people, and making sure that changes are handled with care and planning.
Of course, changes will always be happening in the tech world, and we're in the middle of a big one right now.
