TCS makes only 25k fresher offers this fiscal, more hires dependent on demand

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has extended 25,000 offers to freshers for FY27, with its CEO K Krithivasan indicating that future recruitment will be determined by the demand scenario, while also addressing past layoffs and the impact of AI on its workforce strategy.

IMAGE: K. Krithivasan, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Tata Consultancy Services. Photograph: Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters

TCS has made 25,000 offers to freshers in the current fiscal, and pointed out that the demand scenario will determine whether it hires more college graduates, a top official has said.

The largest information technology services company had hired 44,000 freshers in FY26, one of the highest by any private sector employer in the country, despite the headwinds it faced.

“We have made 25,000 offers for freshers in FY27.

Clarity on demand will lead to more hiring,” its chief executive and managing director K Krithivasan told PTI in an interview over the weekend.

Hiring Strategy and Layoffs

When asked if the company will up its dependence on lateral hires and if the delivery model has undergone any change, he replied in the negative.

Explaining that it takes up to nine months of training before a fresher comes on the floor, while a lateral can deliver immediately, he said, adding that business needs will influence its hiring strategies.

The company has been hiring 40,000 or more freshers every fiscal year for at least three years now.

When asked if there is a possibility of another round of restructuring like the one in FY26, when it laid off at least 12,000 staffers, Krithivasan limited himself to saying that people can have “thriving careers” with the company till they perform well.

Denying that the ingress of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies had anything to do with the layoffs last year, Krithivasan said TCS had to let go of people, mostly senior-level talent, because the style of executing projects had changed of late, and the senior layer was no longer required.

Business Environment and Future Investments

When asked about investor weariness with the company stock influenced by perceptions on performance, Krithivasan assured that the firm is investing for the future, and the same will accrue in growth.

To a question on the business environment, Krithivasan classified the pipeline of projects as “stable” and quickly added “stable is good”, probably hinting at the current macroeconomic environment.

It sees signs of improvement in the discretionary demand front, the CEO said, opining that the new demand is across segments and geographies, and includes cost optimisation and transformation deals.

With the increase in new deal signings, it booked $40 billion of total contract value for FY26, the rate of conversion of the new contracts into revenues has also gone up, he said, without sharing the exact numbers.

Apart from mega deals, customers are also committing a higher proportion of work, which leads to a migration of customers to higher revenue brackets, he said.

Elaborating on the investments front, Krithivasan said these include acquisitions, where the company continues to be on the lookout for entities which will add to its capabilities, partnerships like the recent one with AMD, and also its staff.

Its chief financial officer, Samir Seksaria, said it will continue to look at profit margin expansion through levers, such as utilisation, which helped in FY26.