No decision yet on wage hikes: TCS CHRO on deferring increment roll out beyond Q1

The IT services major’s headcount increased by 5,090 employees on a net basis in the first quarter

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) will be deferring wage hike announcement for its employees for another quarter at least as the company continues to see sustained decision making delays by customers amid macroeconomic challenges.

“We haven’t been able to take a decision yet on wage hike cycle,” TCS Chief HR Officer Milind Lakkad said at the company’s Q1FY26 earnings conference on July 10. TCS usually started its wage hike cycle by April 1 of each fiscal year.

The IT services major’s headcount increased by 5,090 employees on a net basis in the first quarter.

TCS now employs 6,13,069 people, said the country’s largest software exporter.

Speaking of the hiring targets, Lakkad added that “hiring shouldn’t be connected to quarterly growth. It’s is planned on a yearly basis.”

“We had earlier hired during initial quarters then we faced some business challenges. That had caused some imbalance, but we are not that bothered as we will leverage this going forward,” he said.

TCS reported a 1.3 percent YoY increase in revenue to Rs 63,437 crores, while sequentially revenue was down by 1.6 percent. Meanwhile, net profit grew nearly 6 percent YoY and 4.4 percent sequentially to Rs 12, 760 crores, driven by one-off tax benefits and savings in equipment and software licenses required for a large transformation project that wound down.

TCS CEO K Krithivasan attributed the muted growth to global macro-economic and geo-political uncertainties causing demand contraction.

“We had spoken about delays in decision-making when projects start with respect to discretionary investments. This trend has continued and intensified to some extent in this quarter as global businesses were disrupted due to conflicts, economic uncertainty and supply chain issues,” he said at the company’s earnings conference.