India's $315B IT sector just cut 35,000 jobs through silent layoffs. No press releases. No announcements. Just performance reviews that suddenly end careers.

TCS quietly eliminated 23,460 employees in FY26 alone.

The top five Indian IT firms — TCS, Infosys, HCLTech, Wipro, Tech Mahindra — cut a combined 7,389 net roles, reversing the 12,718 they added the year before.

This isn't a demand collapse. Revenues are fine.

It's a structural rewrite of how the $315 billion IT services industry operates.

TeamLease estimates 25,000 to 35,000 roles will vanish by year-end. CIEL HR says 12,000 are already gone through "silent exits" linked to performance reviews and skill relevance — not layoff announcements.

The pattern is identical across every enterprise restructuring this year: middle management and duplicated functions go first. One displaced mid-level manager frees budget for two or three AI-skilled specialists.

TCS has already flagged 25,000 fresher hires for FY27, down from the old 40,000 range.

Four major firms — TCS, Cognizant, Accenture, Oracle — have either delayed onboarding fresh graduates or withdrawn job offers entirely. Candidates who cleared final interviews were told the roles no longer exist.

If you're an enterprise buyer relying on Indian IT services, audit your contracts now. The team delivering your projects today will not be the team delivering them in six months. The vendors are rebuilding their workforce around AI, and your legacy support agreements are funding that transformation.

SOURCE: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/company/corporate-trends/techs-brutal-layoffs-continue-and-india-alone-losing-up-to-35000-jobs/articleshow/132282955.cms

VERIFIED: Economic Times (July 9, 2026), Times of India (July 9, 2026), StartupFeed (July 9, 2026)

SIGNAL: The world's largest IT outsourcing sector is executing the same AI-driven workforce restructuring that hit Big Tech — but doing it silently through performance reviews instead of public layoff notices. Enterprises relying on Indian IT services need to audit their delivery teams now.