'Economic earthquake': Congress expresses concern over TCS layoffs announcement

New Delhi: With Tata Consultancy Services set to lay off about 2 per cent of its global workforce this year, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Monday said the announcement has triggered an "economic earthquake" and hoped that it is a one-time tremor.

TCS, India's largest IT services firm, is set to retrench 12,261 employees, with the majority of those impacted belonging to middle and senior grades.

As of June 30, 2025, TCS's workforce stood at 6,13,069. It increased its workforce by 5,000 employees in the recently concluded April-June quarter.

Ramesh said, "TCS, the creation of the great FC Kohli and the pride of India,“ has triggered an economic earthquake by its announcement of 2% layoff in upper management." "It has been explained as the result of a skills mismatch. Whatever that means, the news is worrisome and the nation can only hope that it is a one-time tremor," the Congress general secretary in-charge communications said on X.

The move is part of the company's broader strategy to become a "future-ready organisation", focusing on investments in technology, AI deployment, market expansion, and workforce realignment, TCS said in a statement.

"TCS is on a journey to become a Future-Ready organisation. This includes strategic initiatives on multiple fronts, including investing in new-tech areas, entering new markets, deploying AI at scale for our clients and ourselves, deepening our partnerships, creating next-gen infrastructure, and realigning our workforce model.

"Towards this, a number of reskilling and redeployment initiatives have been underway. As part of this journey, we will also be releasing associates from the organisation whose deployment may not be feasible. This will impact about 2 per cent of our global workforce, primarily in the middle and the senior grades, over the course of the year," it said.

TCS will provide appropriate benefits, outplacement, counselling, and support to the impacted employees, it added The move comes at a time when India's top IT services companies have delivered single-digit revenue growth in Q1FY26, capping off a somewhat-sobering June quarter as macroeconomic instability and geopolitical tensions weighed on global tech demand and delayed client decision-making.