WHO MOVED MY JOB

INDIA’S BIGGEST EMPLOYMENT GENERATOR SEES MASSIVE RETRENCHMENT, FORCING COMPANIES IN THE SECTOR TO RESTRUCTURE OR RISK OBSOLESCENCE

- By M.G. ARUN & AJAY SUKUMARAN Illustration by NILANJAN DAS / AI

Ankit Das (name changed), an employee with a top IT firm in Bengaluru, is losing sleep.

In his 30s, he had recently moved his family to the city. He had spent four and a half years at the firm, working on the same project. He had been getting a satisfactory 'C' band at employee evaluations, and his Work From Office index, which tracks an employee's adherence to the company's mandated office attendance policy, was “100 per cent”. But suddenly, without explanation, he has been 'benched' (i.e. not on any project) and put on a 'fluidity list'—if your name appears on this list, you will likely be subject to layoff or restructuring. “Initially, my project manager told me I am getting released from the project due to cost-cutting, but he told my delivery manager that my performance is not good,” Das said in a Facebook post on August 12. “It’s been 12 days in bench, not getting calls on domain (Linux, VMware, AWS, Ansible, GIT etc),” he says, fearful of his company's new 35-day bench policy after which one could face the axe.

As global uncertainty deepens, driven by the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Israel, trade disruptions caused by Donald Trump's tariffs, and the rapid upheaval led by Artificial Intelligence (AI), tech companies worldwide are going through a churn. In calendar year 2025 alone, large tech firms such as Intel, Microsoft and Meta laid off over 60,000 staff globally; tech pundits predict more layoffs in the coming days. The tremors have reached India, too, with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest IT services company, letting go of 12,000 employees in July, nearly 2 per cent of its total workforce. According to talent solutions firm Xpheno, 7,700 other senior professionals with over 15 years of experience have exited from the top seven IT firms over the past 12 months.