India’s largest private sector employer Tata Consultancy Services Ltd reported a second, consecutive quarter of headcount reduction, with the total number of employees in the company falling by 5,680 during the three months ended December. Unlike usual, the company also refused to set a target for campus hiring for the coming financial year.
With the latest decline in employee strength, TCS’ total headcount has shrunk from 6.15 lakhs at the end of June to 6.03 lakhs at the end of December.
Efficiency Cuts
The company said the reduction is in keeping with the overall thrust to maintain efficiency in the organization in an atmosphere of reduced demand.
It is believed that the headcount reductions are a result of voluntary attrition – or employees leaving the company on their account – rather than forced terminations.
Headcount declines when a company does not recruit as many people as left it during a particular period.
“We hired a good number of people, a good number of trainees from the market,” Lakkad said, pointing out that hiring may not always keep up with attrition, and that this does not have to be seen as a negative.
“We will continue to hire but depending on the overall situation and the investment me made, we will continue to drive efficiency and as a result if the headcounts become negative then so be it”
He pointed out that the company did a lot of hiring over the last two years, and currently, it is “leveraging” those additions.
Asked whether the future quarters may see similar declines, Lakkad said, “I wont be surprised if that happens..”
Lakkad was also asked whether TCS still stands by their target of hiring 40,000 freshers in the current financial year, Lakkad seemed less sure than usual: “How we start up, with what number, and eventually where we will end up is something we will decide as we go along,” he said.
The company had, three months ago, maintained that it will hire 40,000 freshers this year even though demand was taking a knock.
CAMPUS HIRING
When asked about campus placements and hiring trainees Lakkad said: “We don't have a definitive number for FY25 but definitely we are the first ones to have gone into the campuses and started hiring.”
“When we go to campuses we are looking for more learnability, desire, aptitude and everything else..and some coding skills. Everything else is whatever learning and development does. That machinery works very well for us,” he said adding that the company “trains around 1,16,000 people in Generative AI with 14,000 people in the next level of competency.”
“We really are looking for people who have a desire to learn,” Milind Lakkad said.
The company is also confident and unaffected by the trend that is prevailing among company employees- where veteran employees move to rival firms.