Mumbai, Oct 9 (PTI) Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) headcount fell by nearly 20,000 employees in a quarter, a number 66 per cent more than the planned layoffs the company had announced, as it realigns workforce amid changed business dynamics.

According to Q2 FY26 data on its website, the company's headcount has dropped to 5,93,314 on September 30 compared to 6,13,069 on June 30, down by 19,755 people.

"'... the 20,000 headcount (reduction) is a factor of voluntary and involuntary attrition," its newly appointed chief of human resources (CHRO) Sudeep Kunnumal said in a late evening investor call.

He hinted that the involuntary component in this is 6,000 employees who have been "released" and added that the company is halfway through its estimated reduction.

In July, TCS had said that it plans to lay off about 2 per cent, or over 12,000 employees this year, with the majority of those impacted belonging to middle and senior grades.

After the company disclosures on the headcount as of September 30, IT workers' union NITES accused TCS of downplaying large-scale layoffs through under-reporting.

TCS in a BSE filing on Q2 FY26 earnings gave the details of total headcount and attrition figures (metrics that are standard part of the earnings docket), the factsheet uploaded on its website later showed a closing headcount of 5,93,314 employees in Q2 FY26.

In a late evening investor call, the CHRO said that it took a Rs 1,135-crore hit on the severance payout, making it clear that the 2 per cent workforce cut is not a target, but an estimate.

"We continue to evaluate everyone after all the investment in learning and development that we have done, where we find that in mid and senior levels, people are not able to find the right role based on their seniority, those are the ones that we will release with a lot of care and providing all the required support," the CHRO said.

Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES) said the company's fact sheets "expose the truth".

"This is not a minor difference. Nearly 8,000 employees, more than what TCS admitted, have disappeared from the rolls. For a company of TCS' scale, such underreporting cannot be dismissed as an error. It points to a deliberate attempt to downplay the scale of retrenchments and mislead regulators, policymakers, and the public," NITES said.

The reduction is also deeply alarming given that the attrition has actually fallen, NITES said, adding this means these exits were not voluntary but management-driven.

"TCS has continued to grow revenue during the same period, proving that business performance cannot be used as a justification for such drastic cuts. TCS may present these job cuts as numbers on a balance sheet, but for us they are stories of shattered lives," NITES said.

NITES alleged that employees who have given 10-15 years of loyalty are being cornered, threatened, and discarded overnight.

"This is not restructuring, this is corporate cruelty. TCS has chosen profits over people, turning its workplace into a fear factory and betraying the very workforce that built its empire," Harpreet Singh Saluja, the President of NITES, said in a statement.

While announcing the move in July, TCS said a strategy to become a "future-ready organisation", focusing on investments in technology, AI deployment, market expansion, and workforce realignment had resulted in the decision to go for layoffs only the second time in its history.

At the investor call, Kunnumal claimed that the Tata Group company is sensitively handling the layoffs.

"We are providing the impacted employees with benefits, counselling and outplacement support for their transition as well as severance at terms higher than industry standards.".

Kunnumalm, however, admitted, "Additionally, there has been involuntary attrition as part of our regular ongoing efforts pertaining to performance and bench policies. With the new hires, the release of attrition voluntary and involuntary...global workforce close for Q2 stands at 593,314." PTI MBI AA MR

Underreporting of layoffs alleged as union claims additional unreported departures may mislead regulators and stakeholders. TCS reported a quarterly headcount reduction of 19,755 employees, attributing exits to a combination of voluntary and involuntary attrition and recording a severance charge, while announcing support measures for impacted mid and senior staff. NITES alleges that the company under reported the scale of retrenchments, claiming additional unaccounted departures and asserting that management driven releases, rather than voluntary attrition, account for the discrepancy and may mislead regulators and the public.