TCS Headcount Declines By 5,370 Employees, Attrition Rises To 13%

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. said on Thursday that its employee count decreased by 5,370 during the October-December period, while the attrition for the last 12 months stood at 13%. The total employee count stood at 6,07,354 by the end of December, according to its notification to the exchanges.

In the preceding quarter, the company had added 5,726 employees, while the attrition rate had inched up marginally in the second quarter to 12.3%. However, as of Dec. 31, 2024, the attrition stood at 13.3%.

This comes after two consecutive quarters of increase in employee headcount. In the first quarter, the company added 5,452 employees and subsequently 5,726 employees in the second quarter. The increase in headcount was on the back of hiring revival in the industry as the demand environment started getting better with project pipelines strengthening. 

Milind Lakkad, Chief HR Officer, said, “We promoted over 25,000 associates this quarter, which brought the total promotions this financial year to more than 1,10,000. We continue to invest in employee upskilling and overall well-being. Our campus hiring for the year is going according to plan and preparations are afoot to onboard a higher number of campus hires next year”.

As fresher hiring revived for the IT sector, TCS had announced its plans to hire 40,000 freshers by March 2025. By the first half of the year, the company had hired 11,000 freshers and had noted that it is on track to complete the hiring. 

Prior to two quarters of employee additions, the company's headcount had fallen for the first time in 19 years in FY24. At the end of the fiscal, its employee base stood at 601,546, with a decline of 13,249 employees. This came as the sector was in a downturn with business being hit due to macroeconomic factors. TCS's employee addition year by year has been on a declining trend, while it had added around 1 lakh employees in FY22, additions in FY23 stood at 22,600 employees.