TCS Layoffs: Did the Number Suddenly Jump to 80,000?

In the last day, a new number has been doing the rounds on social media and in some news reports: 80,000 job cuts at TCS. The figure is shocking and far bigger than anything we’ve heard before. But how true is it? To understand, let’s step back and look at how this story has grown over time. For now, TCS shares are trading flat, suggesting investors are not buying into the bigger layoff chatter.

How the Story Began

Earlier this year, Tata Consultancy Services, India’s largest IT company, admitted that some employees would have to leave.
The official word was clear: about 12,000 people, or roughly 2% of the workforce, would be impacted. Leaders explained that the main reason was a skills mismatch. In simple terms, some employees no longer had the exact skills that clients wanted, and the company couldn’t find new roles for them internally.

At the time, this was seen as a big but manageable adjustment in a company that employs over six lakh people.

The Union’s Claim of 30,000

Soon after, trade unions and employee groups raised alarms. They said the real number could be much higher, closer to 30,000 jobs.
They also claimed that many staff were being asked to “resign” instead of being officially laid off, making the actual scale harder to track.

For a while, this number gained attention, but it never became part of the company’s official record. Without documents, filings, or government confirmation, it remained more of a warning than a fact.

The Big Leap to 80,000

Now we arrive at today’s headline. Several reports are pointing to a new figure: 80,000 employees. This has been picked up from social media posts and a handful of articles quoting “sources.”

If true, this would mean over 13% of TCS’s workforce, a giant reduction no Indian IT firm has ever attempted in one go. But there’s an important detail: no evidence, filing, or formal announcement has surfaced to support this jump.

Inside the company, the earlier figure of 12,000 continues to be the number that managers and HR teams work with. Government officials, too, are watching the situation based on that scale.

Analytical Angles From the Past

In our earlier coverage, we noted how this isn’t just about numbers. There are structural shifts happening inside TCS and across the IT industry:

• Bench Policy Becoming Stricter: Employees who remain “unbilled” or on the bench for too long are facing higher risks of exit. This has reduced the safety net that once existed in large IT firms.
• Skill Gaps vs. AI Fears: Officially, the company points to skill mismatches as the main reason. But in the background, automation and AI adoption are reshaping the kinds of roles clients are willing to pay for. Even if AI isn’t the direct reason for layoffs, it is changing the expectation of what a “future-ready” IT worker looks like.
• Mid- and Senior-Level Impact: The brunt seems to fall on middle managers and senior staff, whose skills are less in sync with new project needs. This has raised uncomfortable questions about how well India’s IT giants are preparing their most experienced employees for the next wave of tech.
• Investor Lens: Interestingly, investors are not panicking. As of now, TCS shares are stable, showing that markets see this as a cost-alignment move rather than a signal of long-term weakness.

Together, these points help explain why the story keeps resurfacing with bigger numbers: the fear factor is high, but the verifiable data is still low.

So, What Should We Believe?

Right now, the 80,000 figure looks more like speculation than fact. It seems to have grown out of scattered reports, anxious employee accounts, and the speed at which rumours travel online.
That doesn’t mean people aren’t being impacted, they are. Stories of sudden resignations and emotional exits are real. But the gap between 12,000 and 80,000 is too wide to ignore, and without hard proof, the larger number remains doubtful.

What’s on the Line?

For employees, the uncertainty is the hardest part. Whether the number is 12,000 or more, each job loss is a life disrupted. For TCS, the bigger risk is trust, trust from its staff, from clients, and from the market.

For India’s IT industry, these headlines feed into a larger question: are we seeing the start of a new cycle, where automation, AI, and tighter global budgets lead to more cuts across the sector?

Final Take

The TCS layoff story has become like a snowball, rolling down a hill, gathering size with every claim. It started at 12,000, then grew to 30,000, and now some say 80,000. But the only number that has a paper trail today is still the original 12,000.

Until stronger proof emerges, readers should treat the 80,000 headline as an unconfirmed claim, loud, worrying, but not yet backed by facts.

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