How 'Silent Layoffs' Have Cost 20,000 Indian IT Workers Their Job

The Indian IT industry is currently grappling with ‘silent layoffs’, which have reportedly impacted over 20,000 employees, as per data from the All India IT & ITeS Employees’ Union (AIITEU).

What Happened: A report by Moneycontrol reveals that between 2023 and 2024, thousands of IT services employees were silently let go due to the challenging demand environment in the industry. These layoffs, dubbed “silent”, took place across IT services firms of all sizes and involved employees being subtly coerced into resigning.

According to AIITEU data, around 20,000 employees were let go in discrete layoffs within India’s IT/ITeS sector during 2023. In 2024 alone, the IT employee union Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES) estimates that 2,000-3,000 professionals lost their jobs among the top Indian IT services companies.

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Moneycontrol reported citing sources that companies such as Teradata, State Street, Accenture, Cognizant, and Infosys have been implicated in these silent layoffs, although Infosys and Atos Group have denied any such actions.

The AIITEU suspects that the actual number of layoffs is higher and yet to be reported. The union also pointed out the increasing work hours for existing employees, with many now working for 14-16 hours each day, compared to 10-12 hours a couple of years ago.

Industry experts have labelled this as one of the record-high layoff years since the financial crisis of 2007-2008.

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