TCS vs Infosys vs Wipro vs HCL Tech: Hiring plans, salary hike, headcount ratio, layoffs compared | Company Business News

Major Indian IT companies have announced their hiring policies and workforce trends along with financial results for the quarter/year ending March 31, 2025. These developments come as the IT sector navigates economic uncertainties, a global trade war, and tariff concerns. 

Here’s a comparison between hiring policies, salary hikes, headcount ratios and layoffs for major IT firms –

TCS

Hiring

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) plans to hire thousands of freshers in FY26. During the TCS earnings press conference, Chief Human Resource Officer Milind Lakkad said that the company is hiring 42,000 freshers this fiscal year, in accordance with the hirings made in the last fiscal year.

Salary hike

The IT major deferred the salary hike this year, a departure from its April increment cycle.

Headcount and layoffs

TCS reported a 13.3 per cent attrition rate for the quarter ended on March 31, 2025. The IT firm continued to expand its workforce, adding 6,433 employees. The total headcount stood at 607,979, up from 601,546 in Q4 FY24. The workforce grew by 625 from the December 2024 quarter’s count of 607,354.

There is no official confirmation regarding layoffs by the IT major. However, several employees in the United States have alleged that the company has been biased towards Indian employees and fired American workers during layoffs, reported Bloomberg. The company has strongly denied such allegations.

Infosys

Hiring

Infosys CFO Jayesh Sanghrajka announced that the IT firm plans to hire more than 20,000 freshers in FY26. The IT major hired 6,388 employees, bringing its total workforce to 323,578, marginally higher than 317,240 employees in the previous financial year.

Salary hike

India’s second-largest IT firm announced that a major portion of salary hikes were rolled out in January, and the rest will be rolled out from April 1. It was previously reported that the salary hikes for most of the employees at Infosys range from 5-8 per cent on average, lower than the previous year, according to Moneycontrol.

Meanwhile, the top performers received 10-12 per cent salary hikes. Infosys classifies employees’ performance into four categories – outstanding, commendable, met expectations, and needs improvement.

Headcount

Infosys reported a headcount increase of 199 employees for the quarter ended on March 31, 2025. The attrition rate was reported at 14.1 per cent in Q4FY25 on a year-on-year basis, up from 13.7 per cent in the previous quarter.

Layoffs

Earlier this year, India’s second-largest IT firm made headlines for laying off 400 trainees after they failed evaluation tests in three consecutive attempts. These employees constituted approximately half of the new joiners onboarded in October 2024.

Wipro

Hiring

Wipro added just 612 employees in the quarter ended on March 31, 2025. The company announced that it hired around 12,000 freshers from campus in the last fiscal year. However, Wipro did not mention the FY26 hiring target.

Headcount and layoffs

The net headcount addition of Wipro for FY25 stood at 1,032. The IT major’s attrition rate dipped to 15 per cent from 15.3 per cent in the third quarter, while headcount rose to 2,33,346 employees. There is no official confirmation regarding layoffs.

Salary hike

Wipro did not give any major update regarding salary hike and informed that the company will make a decision closer to the date.

“We are still very far from that time, and in this uncertain environment, we will decide closer to the date,” Chief Human Resource Officer Saurabh Govil said after the announcement of Q4FY25 results. He further added that the company gave salary hike ahead of time in September.

HCL Technologies

Hiring

The company added 2,665 employees for the quarter ended on March 31, 2025, a reduction of 4,061 employees from the previous year. The company has hired 7,829 freshers in FY 25.

Headcount, layoffs and salary hike

The total headcount stood at 223,420 after the addition in March quarter. The company claimed that the headcount declined by 7,398 employees on account of divestiture. The attrition rate stood at 13.4% in Q4, up from 13.2% in the previous quarter. There is no official confirmation in connection with layoffs and a salary hike.