Cognizant to layoff 350 employees, most of them from India

Cognizant plans to layoff nearly 350 senior employees whose annual salaries between Rs 80 lakh and Rs 1.2 crore. Most of these employees are based out of India and are aged 50-55 years.

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Earlier in October this year, Humphries had said in a post-earnings call that a decision to let go of around 10,000 to 12,000 mid-to-senior level employees had been taken as part of the organizational restructuring. These 350-odd highly-paid employees will be a part of the larger layoff plan.

Commenting on this move, Humphries said, this is in order to optimize costs while also to invest in reskilling and growth. However, he added that around 5,000 employees would be reskilled and redeployed, thus bringing down the net reduction in the workforce. However, this figure does not include those employees who would lose jobs after the IT firm exits its content operation business.

Like most of its contemporaries, Cognizant has been aggressively shifting its focus towards digital technology-led services business, a segment that is seeing faster growth than the traditional software implementation services.

Technology services companies such as Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, HCL Technologies, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, and Cognizant have for decades been dependent on a business model where they billed clients based on the hours spent by employees.

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