Bad news for this IT giant as salary hikes to be deferred, not HCL, Infosys, Wipro but...

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), one of India’s largest IT services firms, has announced that salary hikes will be deferred for FY25. The company disclosed the decision during its post-earnings press conference, citing macroeconomic headwinds as a key factor influencing the delay. “As the external environment remains uncertain, we are taking a cautious approach with respect to compensation revisions,” a senior executive at TCS stated during the briefing.

TCS has not specified a revised timeline for implementing the salary hikes but assured that employee well-being and long-term growth remain a top priority for the organisation. Milind Lakkad, Chief HR Officer, TCS, said, “We will decide during the year when to make the wage hike.”

TCS on Thursday announced it has added 625 employees on a net basis during the fourth quarter (Q4) of FY25, reversing the previous quarter's workforce decline. In the December quarter (Q3 FY25), TCS reported a reduction of 5,370 employees in its workforce. With the addition in Q4, the company's total employee count now stands at 6,07,979, as per its regulatory filing. TCS said it had onboarded 42,000 freshers during FY25 as per its original plan. Chief Human Resources Officer Milind Lakkad said the company continues to be the “employer of choice and maintains the industry's best retention rate”.

He added that TCS focuses on a culture that promotes professional and personal growth, well-being, and meaningful engagement. “Our trainee onboarding in FY25 was 42,000 as planned. We continue to enjoy the pride of place as the employer of choice, and the industry-best retention rate by prioritising a culture of professional and personal growth, wellbeing, and purpose-driven engagement for our associates," Lakkad informed.

However, attrition during the quarter rose slightly to 13.3 per cent, compared to 13 per cent in the previous quarter.

The company's overall headcount had declined in FY24 -- the first such drop since it was listed in 2004. In contrast, TCS had added 22,600 employees in FY23 and over 1.03 lakh in FY22. The IT major's consolidated net profit for Q4 fell nearly 2 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 12,293 crore. In the same quarter last year, the company had reported a net profit of Rs 12,502 crore. Revenue from operations, however, grew 5.3 percent YoY to Rs 64,479 crore for the quarter ending March 2025, up from Rs 61,237 crore a year ago.

With IANS inputs