Milind Lakkad, Tata Consultancy Services’ (TCS) Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO), has announced that the company will delay its salary hikes until 2025.
In TCS’ post-Q4 earnings press conference, Lakkad claimed that the salary hikes have been put on hold due to the growing uncertainties within the global market. With the USA’s increasing tariffs becoming a growing concern by the day, the global market has started to slow down, leading to an increase in the time in which clients make their decisions while trying to cut costs.
Lakkad added that the salary hikes are not entirely off the table for the year, stating that the company will revisit the topic in the year depending on the changes in the market. “Because of the uncertain environment, we will decide during the year on wage hikes. It can be at any time, depending on business,” Lakkad announced. Despite the salary hikes being on hold, TCs will still pay its variable payouts to employees, with 70% receiving the full amount while the rest will be given a variable pay based on their performance.
During the press conference, TCS reported a 5.3% year-on-year increase in consolidated revenue to ₹64,479 crore for Q4. The net profit also increased by 1.69% to ₹12,224 crore. While talking about TCS’ talent acquisition, Lakkad revealed that the company hired about 42,000 new trainees in the financial year 2025 (FY25). The number is in line with the target set by the company for the same. In Q4, TCS hired 625 new employees and the company’s headcount increased by 6,433 over the last year.
“We continue to hire from campuses, and the number could be slightly higher this year than what we added last year,” Lakkad said. “Fresher hiring will be similar or may be higher in FY26.”
Despite the continued hirings, TCS’s net attrition for Q4 increased to 13.3%, which is higher than the previous quarter’s 13%. “Although TTM attrition has marginally increased, our quarterly annualised attrition rate has come down by 130 basis points,” Lakkad shared optimistically.