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TCS Not To Lay Off Employees Amid Covid-19 Lockdowns, Freezes Salary Hikes

TCS, which has about 4.5 lakh employees worldwide, will not rescind job offers to 40,000 freshers and get all of them on board.

Employees stand near a signage for Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.  in Hyderabad, India. (Photographer: Namas Bhojani/Bloomberg)
Employees stand near a signage for Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. in Hyderabad, India. (Photographer: Namas Bhojani/Bloomberg)

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. will not effect any layoffs due to coronavirus lockdowns nor will it give any salary hikes this year, India’s largest software services exporter said while announcing its March quarter results on Thursday.

The Tata group company, which has about 4.5 lakh employees worldwide, also said it will not rescind job offers to 40,000 new hires and get all of them onboard.

TCS’ quarterly profit met analysts’ estimates in the January-March period as record deal wins offset impact of Covid-19 on business. The company, however, expects revenue to contract in 2020-21 with recovery likely only in the third quarter of the fiscal.

TCS Q4 Results 2019-20: Key Highlights

  • Net profit fell 0.8 percent sequentially to Rs 8,049 crore in March quarter.
  • Revenue rose 0.2 percent quarter-on-quarter to Rs 39,946 crore.
  • Dollar revenue fell 2.5 percent to $5,444 million.
  • Operating profit rose 0.5 percent to Rs 10,025 crore.
  • Margin expanded 10 basis points to 25.1 percent.

"Every offer that we have made will be honoured. We do not see any retrenchments," TCS' Chief Executive Officer Rajesh Gopinathan told reporters.

The IT firm’s head of human resources, Milind Lakkad, said TCS has given out 40,000 job offers to freshers and all of them will come onboard as the year proceeds. Typically, colleges and universities will be on till June, and then the students will start joining, he added.

However, in what may come as a dampener to TCS employees, there will be no salary hikes this year, Lakkad said. "We have decided not to give any salary hikes this time," he said.

Gopinathan said TCS has an overall attrition rate of 12.1 percent, which is one of the best in the industry, and affirmed commitment to look after the employees and appreciated their commitment to the company in this hour of crisis.

Also Read: Analysts Maintain Stance On TCS But Cautious On Outlook

Chief Operating Officer N Ganapathy Subramaniam said TCS has 3.55 lakh employees in India at present and 90 percent of them are now connected with secure workplaces to serve clients' needs.

To be sure, TCS has observed a decline in productivity due to its employees working from home. But there are learnings from this for the future, COO Subramaniam said, including on why all associates have to work from a single office.