Largest IT Layoff in India? TCS' Affected 12,000 Employees Will Be Offered Severance Package, Outplacement Support

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has confirmed plans to cut around 12,000 jobs—roughly 2 percent of its global workforce—in what is now the largest layoff in the company’s history. The announcement puts to rest weeks of speculation, which intensified after the company introduced a new benching policy last month.

In a statement to Moneycontrol, TCS CEO K Krithivasan confirmed the decision. "This will impact roughly 2 percent of our global workforce, primarily at middle and senior levels. It has not been an easy decision and one of the toughest decisions I have had to take as CEO," he said. As of June, TCS had an employee headcount of 6,13,000 globally. The layoffs will happen through the fiscal year 2026 (April 2025 - March 2026).

In addition to notice period pay and a severance package, TCS will provide extended insurance coverage and outplacement support to affected employees.

Employees at TCS claim that benched people are more susceptible to layoffss. The company introduced a new benching policy last month, mandating all staff to have at least 225 of billable days per year and limited bench time to less than 35 days.

One employee, on condition of anonymity, confirmed this, “They are removing all the people who are on bench for more than 2 months. First, they are allocating an HR person to each employee to meet in person. On meeting them, they will ask the employee to resign immediately and they will get around 3-month salary in severance pay. If they don’t oblige, they will get terminated by the company and won’t be eligible to get the severance pay also.”

Krithivasan clarified that the job cuts are not a result of AI-led productivity gains but stem from a mismatch in skills and inability to redeploy affected staff. “It’s not AI driving this. It is based on the assessment that we are not able to place certain people, and we don’t see them getting deployed in the near term,” he said.