The safe-house myth of Indian IT has been shattered. For decades, companies like Tata Consultancy Services Ltd symbolised job security and upward mobility. This earnings season turned that perception on its head, as TCS announced plans to shed 12,000 employees over the coming year, 2% of its workforce, the largest layoff in the history of Indian IT.The company blamed “skill mismatches” and the inability to redeploy staff, rather than Artificial Intelligence or automation. The explanation, while plausible on paper, cuts deeper when weighed against TCS’s own reskilling narrative. After years of boasting about training 550,000 employees on digital basics and 100,000 on advanced technologies, the company now claims redeployment is “impossible”. That disconnect has unsettled both markets and middle management, raising uncomfortable questions about the true value of those investments.
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