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TCS layoffs: Amid the much-publicized power tussle within Tata Trusts Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)-- Tata Groups most valuable firm-- has been accused of under-reporting the number of workers it has laid off during its biggest-ever layoffs in the current fiscal year. According to the companys Q2 FY26 data its employee count has dropped by nearly 20000 about 66 percent higher than the planned layoffs it had earlier announced. Why TCS headcount fell by 20000 workers? As per the Q2 data posted on TCS website the companys headcount stood at 593314 on September 30 compared to 613069 on June 30 a decreased of 19755 workers. In a late evening investor call on Friday TCS newly appointed chief of human resources (CHRO) Sudeep Kunnumal attributed the reduced the headcount reduction to voluntary and involuntary attrition hinting that involuntary component is the 6000 employees who have been released adding that TCS is halfway through its estimated reduction. Notably in July TCS had announced plans to cut about 2 percent or over 12000 employees of its global workforce in 2025 with the majority of those impacted belonging to middle and senior grades. The CHRO said that TCS took a Rs 1135-crore hit on the severance payout making it clear that the 2 per cent workforce cut is not a target but an estimate. We continue to evaluate everyone after all the investment in learning and development that we have done where we find that in mid and senior levels people are not able to find the right role based on their seniority those are the ones that we will release with a lot of care and providing all the required support the CHRO said. Did TCS under-report layoffs? Meanwhile following the headcount disclosure IT workers union Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES) accused TCS of downplaying large-scale layoffs through under-reporting claiming that the companys fact sheets expose the truth about the layoffs. This is not a minor difference. Nearly 8000 employees more than what TCS admitted have disappeared from the rolls. For a company of TCS scale such underreporting cannot be dismissed as an error. It points to a deliberate attempt to downplay the scale of retrenchments and mislead regulators policymakers and the public NITES said. NITES said the reduction is also deeply alarming given that the attrition has actually fallen adding this means these exits were not voluntary but management-driven. TCS has continued to grow revenue during the same period proving that business performance cannot be used as a justification for such drastic cuts. TCS may present these job cuts as numbers on a balance sheet but for us they are stories of shattered lives it said. The IT workers union termed TCS layoffs as corporate cruelty alleging that the company has cornered threatened and discarded overnight employees who have given 10-15 years of loyalty. This is not restructuring this is corporate cruelty. TCS has chosen profits over people turning its workplace into a fear factory and betraying the very workforce that built its empire Harpreet Singh Saluja the President of NITES said in a statement. TCS accused of forcing workers to quit TCS in a BSE filing on Q2 FY26 earnings omitted the details of total headcount and attrition figures (metrics that are standard part of the earnings docket) the factsheet uploaded on its website later showed a closing headcount of 593314 employees in Q2 FY26. Earlier this month NITES had alleged that TCS forced 2500 workers to resign in Pune even as the IT giant refuted the allegations asserting that only a limited number of employees have been affected by our recent initiative to realign skills in our organisation. TCS layoffs The fresh allegations against TCS come amid the backlash over large scale layoffs it had announced in June under which the IT firm had said it plans to cut 2 percent of its global workforce this year affecting about 12261 workers. TCS layoffs the largest in the history of India’s IT industry will affect workers from all countries and domains where the company is operational. The TCS layoffs are likely to be conducted between April 2025 and March 2026 and will mainly impact employees belonging to middle and senior grades. The allegations against TCS also come amid the ongoing power tussle within Tata Trusts-- the majority shareholder of  Tata Groups holding company Tata Sons-- which has essentially divided the salt-to-semiconductor conglomerate into two opposing camps. (With PTI inputs)