Tata Consultancy Services reported a net fall of 6,333 employees in headcount in the second quarter (Q2) of FY24 taking the overall headcount to 608,985. Further, the headcount fell by 7,186 compared to the year-ago period. India's largest software exporter had added only around 523 employees sequentially in Q1.
This comes as IT companies are facing slow growth because of macro headwinds and tech spends being pulled by clients. Last month global IT major Accenture reported a headcount growth of just 951 in their fourth quarter while guiding a tepid 2-5% revenue growth for FY24. Voluntary attrition for the quarter for stood at 14.9% compared with 17.8% last quarter and the company said further improvements in the metric would be seen going forward.
In Q1, six leading Indian IT services companies recorded the sharpest contraction in headcount in the last three years in the April-June period. Aggregate staffing at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, HCLTech, Wipro, LTIMindtree and L&T Technology Services (LTTS) contracted by 18,000, worse than a negative 9,000 in the June quarter of 2021, which was during the pandemic.
Also, the IT majors are also delaying campus recruitment drives or conducting the same in lower volumes. Indian pure-play outsourcing firms are going slow on campus hires. Wipro, Capgemini, HCLTech and Tech Mahindra said that they are taking a phased