‘Involuntary attrition’, not mass layoffs, says TCS

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the country's largest software services firm, today defended itself over reports that it has pink-slipped 2,574 employees in the first nine months of this fiscal, and as the total layoffs in the full year are expected to exceed 3,000.

TCS termed these exits as "involuntary attrition", and claimed it does not plan to initiate any large-scale layoffs among any section of its staff in any part of the organisation.

"The involuntary attrition for the nine months (April-December) of this year has been 2,574 employees, which represents 0.8 per cent of the total employee strength," TCS said in a statement.

The statement came even as the Madras High Court restrained the company from terminating a mid-level employee, one Sasirekha Thangavel Natarajan or Rekha, who had appealed saying her termination was in contravention of labour laws (See: HC restrains TCS from sacking mid-level employee)

At the end of 30 September 2014, TCS had a total headcount of 3,13,757.

"The corresponding numbers for FY'14 and FY'13 were 2,203 and 2,132 respectively. The total involuntary attrition for the current fiscal year (ending March 31, 2015) will be around 1 per cent," the company statement said.

On reports that the Mumbai-based firm was looking at a significant performance-related restructuring of workforce, TCS said it has reached out to its employees with the message that these are entirely false and baseless claims.

"There have been discussions on various social media forums about alleged large scale layoffs at TCS ... we would like to place on record that TCS has not initiated, and is not planning to initiate any large scale exits of any section of its staff in any part of the organisation," it said.

Performance appraisal and associated processes are an integral part of the company's operations, TCS added.

TCS said it has been one of the largest job-creators of the country and it has "consistently" had the highest employee retention in the IT industry.

Last month, reports said TCS was looking at restructuring that would affect both onsite and offsite positions across various verticals, even as the company said it is on track to meet hiring target of 55,000 professionals this fiscal.

Most affected by the restructuring drive could be middle-to-senior level positions, sources had said, adding that some employees could be offered positions at vendors working with TCS.

The country's largest software exporter with over $13-billion annual turnover employs over 3 lakh people across 46 countries.

TCS is due to announce its financial results for the quarter ended December 2014 on Thursday, 15 January.

In the September 2014 quarter, the company's headcount utilisation stood at 86.2 per cent, excluding trainees, while the figure after including trainees was 81.3 per cent.

The net addition stood at 8,326 employees during the quarter, while its attrition rate was 12.8%.

During the September quarter, TCS had also crossed the milestone of employing one lakh women professionals with a gender diversity ratio of 32.9%.

The company's net profit declined by 5.8 per cent to Rs5,244 crore in the September quarter of the current fiscal, while revenue rose by 7.7 per cent to Rs23,816 crore.