TCS layoffs unlikely to trigger immediate real estate impact: Experts

TCS layoffs unlikely to trigger immediate real estate impact: Experts

India’s real estate sector is not expected to see any immediate impact from Tata Consultancy Services’ (TCS) plan to lay off 12,000 employees over the next few quarters. Developers and consultants said that unless such layoffs become widespread across the IT sector, the implications for office leasing and housing demand may remain limited.

"The recent decision by TCS to reduce 12,000 jobs, while significant, accounts for just about 2 percent of the workforce and may not have an immediate or widespread impact on the real estate market," said Amit Agarwal, CEO and Co-founder, NoBroker.

"At this scale, the move is unlikely to cause a major slowdown in office leasing or housing demand in key IT corridors in the short term. However, if such workforce rationalisations continue across the sector and begin to reflect a broader hiring slowdown, it could gradually influence real estate absorption patterns, particularly in IT-heavy micro-markets," he added.

On similar lines, a Bengaluru-based developer who did not wish to be named said, "We have seen this with other major occupiers such as Amazon, which carried out multiple rounds of layoffs in the past few years, but demand from other sources continued as work-from-home arrangements ended. We think this will be a one-off event, and there are other sources of demand as well, especially the India-facing businesses, corporates, and Global Combability Centers (GCCs) of segments such as automobiles, pharma, or financial services."

Further, analysts believe the growing expansion of GCCs in India may help offset any temporary impact caused by layoffs in traditional IT firms.

GCCs have been expanding rapidly in India, particularly in Bengaluru and Hyderabad, where the cost of rentals and housing remains relatively competitive. Office space demand is also being supported by this trend, with GCCs now accounting for a sizeable portion of leasing volumes.

Bengaluru alone accounted for 10.2 million sq ft of GCC leasing in H1 2025, followed by Chennai (2.5 million) and Hyderabad (2.4 million), as per Knight Frank India.

Even so, developers said that some homebuyers are beginning to show signs of caution. An analyst at a broking company said that: "Due to job-related uncertainty, homebuyers are taking longer to finalise their purchase decisions. The decision-making cycle has extended, indicating a more cautious approach in the current environment."

This caution is already visible in Bengaluru, where brokers say landlords in tech-heavy areas such as Marathahalli and near Manyata Tech Park are increasingly hesitant to renew leases with tenants from the IT sector, he added.

India’s real estate market has seen similar concerns before. In 2023, after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and layoffs at several global and domestic startups, sentiments briefly dipped before recovering. The share of IT services in overall office leasing has also declined since the pandemic, with many multinational companies opting to move technology and strategic roles in-house through GCCs. Demand from India-facing businesses has also grown steadily over the past few years.

As of now, while the job cuts at TCS have raised short-term concerns, the overall demand from alternative sectors, including automotive, pharma, and financial services, as well as rising GCC activity, is expected to support stability in the commercial and residential property markets.