India's largest IT services firm, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), is set to lay off about 2 per cent, or 12,261 employees, of its global workforce this year, with the majority of those impacted belonging to middle and senior grades. As of June 30, 2025, TCS's workforce stood at 613,069. It increased its workforce by 5,000 employees in the recently concluded April-June quarter.
Knowledge workers and mid-career professionals in India are hopeful that artificial intelligence will positively impact their roles, even as concerns about job displacement persist, especially among younger professionals, a top official of a human capital management solutions provider has said. At a time when AI has become a critical part of an organisation's functioning, many professionals see the positive possibilities of AI.
'People are taking effort to train and adapt to current skills.' 'If that is not there, they are not useful to us.' 'They have to adapt to new technology, and what is important is learnability.'
Streamlining enterprise data, having an AI policy, reskilling people, and cultural transformation have been cited by experts as key.
At a time of massive job losses that is what the much-vaunted Indian IT sector needs. Ritwik Sharma reports.
India is projected to grow at 6.4 per cent in fiscal year 2025 and 2026, and the country's stable growth is driven by a reform momentum supporting robust consumption growth and a push for public investment, the International Monetary Fund has said. The IMF released its World Economic Outlook (WEO) Update on Tuesday.
'People who really are at the frontier of using AIs are going to be way more employable than people who are not.'
55% Indians fear that their skills could become partially or fully obsolete within the next five years.
Despite the alarming figures on job displacement, AI is expected to generate millions of new roles, echoing historical trends of technological transformation.
'As more and more work becomes automated and a range of lower-level and higher-level tasks are replaced by AI, the need for a classic command-and-control pyramid structure goes away.'
Generative AI is transforming workplaces but at a cost -- there are fewer jobs for young workers just entering the workforce, reveals a Goldman Sachs report.
Shift from producing graduates proficient in analysis and strategy to producing graduates capable of initiating, executing, and scaling impactful actions in real-world environments, points out Ajit Balakrishnan.
'30 to 40% of the industry needs to be reskilled as existing jobs will go to automation.' 'Reskilling is required as some existing jobs will not be required in the future.'
'Keeping a bench increases cost. If you keep a bench, the skills may not remain relevant.' 'In the future, bench strength will literally be zero.'
'This is the time to be creative, use AI in real-time operations, and unlock new demand and aspirations.'
Companies typically face challenges in recruiting candidates who are skilled in AI, machine learning and generative artificial intelligence though they have hundreds of vacancies.
While TCS cited evolving business needs and future readiness as reasons, industry experts say the action is a cost-cutting measure aimed at improving operating margins that have remained below the firm's aspirational range despite multiple efforts.
'India is a very strategic geography. The business is growing over 37-38 per cent year-on-year.'
The initiative, whose founding partners also include Accenture, CA Technologies, Cisco, Cognizant, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Pegasystems, PwC, Salesforce and SAP, aims to bring competitive training content together on one platform to serve the greater good.
As AI becomes central to upskilling, a growing number of learners -- from seasoned professionals to school students -- are eager to explore and experiment with technology.
Entry level engineers for these roles can be paid between Rs 4 lakh to Rs 8 lakh annually, which can go beyond Rs 30 lakhs for people with more than eight years of experience.
Despite the dominance of AI, creativity and innovation are the most in-demand skills, reveal LinkedIn's Skills On The Rise 2025 report.
Air India has laid off more than 180 non-flying staff in recent weeks, sources said while the airline maintained that the affected people were not able to utilise the voluntary retirement schemes and reskilling opportunities. The loss-making Air India was taken over by the Tata Group in January 2022 and since then, efforts are being made to streamline the business model. An Air India spokesperson on Friday said that as part of the fitment process, employees in non-flying functions have been assigned roles based on organisational needs and individual merit.
C P Gurnani, CEO & MD of Tech Mahindra, India's fifth-largest IT services company, tells B Dasarath Reddy that the company is exploring both ways as it looks at bringing in best of the breed technologies to offer to global clients.
An increase in the farmer income support scheme PM Kisan Nidhi, the introduction of a 'robot tax' to fund reskilling of people who lose their jobs to artificial intelligence (AI), and a reduced income-tax (I-T) to bring relief to the middle classes - these are some of the items in the Budget wish list submitted by Sangh Parivar affiliates to Finance Minister (FM) Nirmala Sitharaman. Representatives of the affiliates of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), such as the farmer organisation Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS); trade union Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS); Laghu Udyog Bharati, which works for micro and small industries; and Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM), which works on economic and policy issues, met the FM and other officials over the last couple of weeks as part of the pre-Budget consultations.
The purpose for which AI should be used cannot be left to AI developers, asserts Vice Admiral Biswajit Dasgupta (retd).
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India's largest IT services firm, is planning to increase salaries by an average of 7-8 per cent for its offsite employees and 2-4 per cent for its onsite staffers in 2024-25. High performers can expect a raise of 12-15 per cent. The company, which had a headcount of 603,305 as of December 31, 2023, will be closely looking at the promotions and the process may also get pushed to the first quarter of FY25, revealed a source on condition of anonymity, because he is not authorised to speak to the media.
Jobs requiring AI skills carry a significant wage premium, with some roles offering up to a 25 per cent increase in wages, notes Manoj Nagpal, vice president, professional services, OpenText, an information management company.
'Asset allocation should be driven much more by long-term factors rather than the market scenario at any particular point in time.'
Severe skilled, unskilled shortage threatens to pull emergency brakes on India's industrial engine.
Quiet hiring allows employees to expand their skill sets, making them more versatile and valuable to the organisation, says Sonica Aron, founder of the HR consultancy firm, Marching Sheep.
The advent of internet of things, blockchain, data analytics, artificial intelligence, and self-driving cars has also created huge business opportunities for online training platforms such as Udacity and Coursera.
'Use this money to build an emergency fund if you do not have one.'
Investing the time and resources needed to acquire new skill sets and sharpen existing ones will enable you to stay relevant and make you more employable, says Ankit Aggarwal, founder and CEO of Unstop.
Communication skills, negotiation skills, social skills, etiquette, behavioural skills, etc, should be part of your learning. Develop confidence because that's the key to success, advises rediffGURU Archana Deshpande.
Interpersonal skills like communication, co-operation and teamwork are valued for fostering a positive and productive work environment.
A bulk of the Paris-headquartered IT major Capgemini's proposed euro 2 billion investment over three years in artificial intelligence (AI) is coming to India, a top official of the company said here on Wednesday. The three areas where the European tech major is investing are talent acquisitions, talent reskilling and for partnerships and creating a centre of excellence (CoE). "We have announced we will be training 100,000 people by the first half of 2024.
Reskill and Restart - powered by Infosys Wingspan - takes job seekers on a guided journey, beginning with aptitude and skills assessment, followed by curated job-specific skills training, and culminating in matching them with available positions.
'AI may perform tasks, but deep expertise and specialisation remain uniquely human.'
Try to maintain a healthy relationship with people you have worked for and within the past, suggests Sachin Alug.
