Six of India’s largest IT services companies saw their combined headcount fall by nearly 24,000 positions over the past year as employee attrition outpaced fresh hiring, according to data compiled by staffing firm Xpheno and reported by the Economic Times.
Combined headcount at Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, HCLTech, Wipro, Tech Mahindra and LTIMindtree fell nearly 3% from 822,144 in October 2025. Together, the six companies recorded around 92,000 employee exits over the year, while replacement hiring totalled about 68,000, a shortfall because firms chose not to refill every vacant position at the same pace employees left.
The data makes clear this is a net headcount decline, not 92,000 or 24,000 active layoffs. Attrition simply ran ahead of fresh intake across the six majors.
The trend sits alongside signs of a brighter near-term outlook elsewhere in the market. ManpowerGroup’s Q4 2026 Employment Outlook Survey of 3,055 Indian employers found a Net Employment Outlook of 54%, the strongest among the 42 countries surveyed, with 65% of employers planning to increase staffing between October and December. Separately, India’s healthcare global capability centres are projected to generate 67,000 job openings in 2026, according to Quess Corp’s India Healthcare GCC Outlook.
Festive-season fresher hiring intent is also climbing, and West Bengal recently opened 1,145 new permanent government posts. Even so, the net reduction across the six largest listed IT services firms signals that replacement hiring, not headcount expansion, remains the dominant pattern in the sector for now.
