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Soham Parekh Weighs in on TCS Layoffs and Job Security

India’s IT landscape is witnessing an unsettling shift with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), one of the bellwethers of the sector, laying off thousands of employees amid growing economic pressures and transformation in tech operational models. While the official number hovers around a staggering 12,000 job cuts in 2025, the signal it sends resonates well beyond the company’s walls. Serial moonlighter and industry commentator Soham Parekh recently voiced his perspective on the evolving reality of job stability in Indian IT, shining a light on both the systemic roots of the shake-up and how professionals should recalibrate in response. As economic headwinds, AI disruption, and business optimization converge, Parekh’s thoughts reflect a larger truth — job security in tech is being redefined.

Understanding the Layoffs at TCS and Their Broader Context

Announced in Q1 2025, the layoffs at TCS have rattled not only employees but also industry observers, particularly because TCS has traditionally been viewed as a stable employer. The 12,000 job cuts represent approximately 2.8% of the company’s global workforce and come against a backdrop of cost-cutting, underutilization of middle management, and sweeping digitization practices. According to the Hindustan Times report, the layoffs are targeted largely at experienced professionals with relatively higher compensation structures, with an internal focus on streamlining resources for AI innovation and client-centric project acceleration.

Given TCS’s top-line earnings have held steady year-over-year, the cause of these layoffs appears to stem more from long-term strategic shifts than urgent financial distress. TCS is shifting from labor-intensive service models to AI-augmented delivery systems, marking a sea change that will ripple across the Indian IT ecosystem. This repositioning speaks volumes about what companies value in 2025 — rapidity, adaptability, and technological fluency over tenure alone.

Soham Parekh’s Take: Reframing Career Resilience

Soham Parekh, best known for advocating self-reliance among tech professionals and for navigating multiple concurrent tech roles despite employment norms, has been particularly vocal in encouraging a mindset shift. In his 2025 remarks, Parekh argues that employees must abandon the “comfort illusion” of corporate jobs and instead adopt diversified, proactive career planning. In his words: “You are not your job title. Your skillset, adaptability, and ability to solve problems define you — not your access card or how long you’ve spent at one desk.” (Hindustan Times, 2025)

Parekh warns that loyalty to firms no longer offers the insulation it once did. Instead, he champions moonlighting and continuous learning, viewing them not as threats to corporate coherence, but as essential hedges against job displacement. His message resonates particularly at a time when companies are themselves becoming more agile — outsourcing what they once insourced, and valuing outcome over process.

Technological and Economic Drivers Behind Layoffs

While workforce optimization is a natural enterprise cycle, its scale and intensity at TCS in 2025 point to larger underlying forces:

  • AI Implementation: The adoption of generative AI models and LLMs has reduced the need for traditional programmer and tester roles. According to OpenAI’s 2025 labor analysis, up to 43% of routine tech tasks are now partially automatable by AI. This paradigm has seen a surge in AI-enabled service delivery at large integrators, with TCS integrating open-source LLMs as early as Q4 2024.
  • Client Pressure: Large enterprise clients are demanding faster turnaround and competitive pricing — a combination that favors automation over human-driven backends. In 2025’s McKinsey Global Institute review on digital transformation, 64% of surveyed CEOs stated that operational cost-cutting via tech adoption was a top priority.
  • Rising Real Estate and Facility Costs: In-person return-to-office policies are facing backlash due to soaring office leases. The hybrid work debate, particularly highlighted in Harvard Business Review’s Hybrid Work 2025 series, has shown that maintaining physical space adds 16-20% overhead cost per employee — a considerable pressure when margins tighten.

Illustration: Drivers of Workforce Reduction at TCS

Primary Driver Impact Area Forecast Change
AI Automation Programming/Testing ↓35–50% human dependency
Workplace Cost Facility Overhead ↑18% annual cost
Client Price Sensitivity Billing Efficiency ↑Demand for automation-based deliverables

The Future of Employment in Tech: Skills Over Stability

The global tech narrative is pivoting aggressively from role-based employment to results-based gig structures, especially in tier-1 IT. Parekh emphasizes that the emerging workforce must invest in becoming “problem solvers over process followers”. This ideology is echoed in recent World Economic Forum publications, which stress interdisciplinary fluency across data, business, and customer interfaces as a gateway to future-proofing careers.

Parallel trends show companies like Infosys, Accenture, and HCL also resizing internal teams, forming what MIT Technology Review refers to as the “optimized workforce era” (MIT Tech AI, 2025). As firms experiment with hybrid human-AI teams, professionals who can guide, audit, or operationalize these systems rather than only execute code will have sustainable roles.

Supporting this view, Deloitte’s Future of Work 2025 study outlines that over 70% of firms now hire through skills-based assessments, reducing the emphasis on years of experience or degree pedigree. It indicates a systemic shift in hiring culture aligned with Parekh’s perspective.

Costs and Competitive Pressures Driving Strategic Shifts

With margin stress and budgets under scrutiny, companies are actively modulating workforce composition to keep pace with shifting delivery models and cost expectations. As explored on MarketWatch and CNBC Markets in early 2025, boardroom-level discussions are focusing on “employee productivity return per dollar” — financial metrics that bluntly favor AI infrastructure over human expansion.

Meanwhile, the AI development landscape is becoming more competitive and capital-intensive. New launches like OpenAI’s GPT-5 Cygnus, NVIDIA’s Broadwell inference platforms (NVIDIA Blog), and DeepMind’s multi-agent systems (DeepMind Blog) reinforce that companies must continually invest in next-gen infrastructure. These costs — including server acquisition, training clusters, and enterprise licensing — eat into operational funds previously earmarked for human capital.

As a result, when big firms forecast stagnant revenue but increasing tech expenditure, employee optimization becomes a mathematically inevitable lever.

Practical Strategies for Professionals: Insights from Soham Parekh

Where does this leave professionals navigating today’s turbulent tech cosmos? Parekh outlines some pragmatic strategies:

  1. Continuously update skills — particularly in AI prompt engineering, cybersecurity, and DevOps automation.
  2. Engage in parallel income streams: gig projects, freelance code audits, and even teaching tech-focused courses on platforms like Udemy and Coursera.
  3. Maintain a strong online portfolio to remain discoverable and relevant.
  4. Participate in Kaggle challenges or contribute to open-source GitHub repositories expecting increased employer visibility.

Supporting his point, Kaggle’s 2025 Developer Insights shows that top quartile freelance coders earn more per-hour today than mid-level employees in structured IT roles. The data is reshaping perceptions about employment vs. enablement.

Conclusion: Realities of the New Employment Paradigm

The layoffs at TCS and corresponding remarks from Soham Parekh underscore a broader tectonic shift in what tech employment will mean going forward. Stability lies not in contracts, but in continuously evolving one’s potential across a dispersed, AI-augmented economy. Those who adapt will not only remain relevant — they’ll thrive in tomorrow’s dynamic market realities.

by Alphonse G

This article is based on or inspired by the original source available at: Hindustan Times.

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