Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) will release around 12,260 employees, approximately 2 per cent of its global workforce, under a restructuring drive titled ‘Project Fluidity’, the IT major announced on Sunday.
As India’s largest IT services firm, TCS is undertaking the move to align with an emerging business landscape where artificial intelligence, automation, and generative AI are reshaping the sector. The reduction will mainly affect employees in middle and senior management roles and will be phased over the course of the year.
“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,” the company said in a statement.
Those familiar with the matter stated that performance evaluations would play a role in deciding which employees are retained or benched. “Project Fluidity” aims to inject agility and responsiveness into the organisation’s operational structure as it prepares for AI-led transformation and evolving global demands.
The announcement, made over the weekend, comes as Indian IT firms face mounting pressure due to global headwinds, geopolitical uncertainty, economic sluggishness, tariff anxieties, and a softening demand in North America, the sector’s largest market.
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While layoffs have largely remained a rarity at TCS in previous downturns, the integration of generative and agentic AI appears to be accelerating shifts within the workforce, pressing firms to do more with less.
TCS clarified that the downsizing would not impact client services. “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 senior grades, over the course of the year. This transition is being planned with due care to ensure there is no impact on service delivery to our clients,” the company stated.
To soften the impact, the company is reportedly implementing reskilling and redeployment programmes aimed at repositioning talent within growth segments.
At the end of the June quarter (Q1 FY26), TCS had a total headcount of 613,069. The company’s share price closed at ₹3,135.80 on Friday, down 1.37 per cent for the day.
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