The hiring engine is back online. TCS posted a net add of 4,258 employees in the September quarter, lifting the total workforce to 598,056 on the BSE/NSE filings. This marks a sharp acceleration from the 2,356 net hires recorded in the March quarter, breaking a streak of cautious staffing that had defined the last two years. The June quarter had already signaled a shift with 9,279 additions, but this latest data point confirms the trajectory is steepening, not plateauing.
Attrition, the metric that kept Wall Street and Dalal Street on edge, is holding steady. The last-twelve-month attrition rate for IT services ticked down slightly to 13.3% from 13.6% in the prior quarter. For a firm of this scale, that stability is the real story. It suggests the talent pool isn’t just being replenished; it’s being retained. Chief Human Resources Officer Sudeep Kunnumal attributed this to a 17% sequential jump in learning hours, which hit 17.1 million during the quarter. The company is betting that upskilling is the antidote to the brain drain, not just higher pay checks.
The financials back up the strategic pivot. Consolidated revenue stood at ₹73,188 crore, with net profit at ₹13,884 crore. More telling is the revenue mix. AI-related revenue crossed the $3.1 billion mark, now accounting for more than 10% of the overall topline. CEO K Krithivasan highlighted broad-based growth across international markets, specifically citing transformation partnerships with Porsche and Best Buy as key drivers. Deal wins also edged up to $9.6 billion from $9.5 billion in the previous quarter, indicating that demand for complex, high-margin projects is outpacing simple staffing needs.
The board also declared a dividend of ₹12 per share for the quarter. With headcount recovering and AI becoming a material revenue stream, TCS is positioning itself less as a traditional IT services firm and more as a technology transformation partner. The market will be watching whether this hiring surge translates into margin expansion in the coming quarters, or if it merely reflects the cost of entering the AI race. For now, the workforce numbers are the clearest signal yet that TCS is done cutting and ready to scale.