TCS Layoff and Variable Salary Cut

India’s biggest software exporter by sales, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), will lay off less than a percent of its global workforce over the next few months, as these employees failed to meet performance standards, a company spokesperson said.This roughly works out to almost 1300 of its total employee count, which is around 1.3 lakh. IT companies have started adopting stringent appraisal measures, trimming costs and improving productivity as they grapple with the global economic slow down.TCS employees, on condition of anonymity said the lay-offs have already started happening at the company’s development centres in Chennai, where over two hundred employees have been asked to leave in the last fortnight. When contacted, a member of the TCS corporate communication team confirmed the development but did not put a number or place to it. “This is mostly employees who have been given a second chance to improve and haven’t. They will be sent over a period, in the next few months. This will constitute less than a percent of our global workforce. We had to let go of 500 people last year on performance issues.”This comes less than a week after the company’s CEO S Ramadorai said the company would review the variable pay component for its employees and also increase the working hours.When asked about job cuts, he had said the company wasn’t planning to cut jobs immediately but might have to if the situation worsened. Employee expenses make up for at least 53-54% of the company’s total cost. Going by its analyst presentation for the third quarter ended December 2008, TCS had a total employee count of 1,30,343.