Cognizant may sack 350 employees as part of cost reduction measures; company to focus more on digital technology services

American Information Technology (IT) company firm Cognizant may lay off about 350 employees as part of cost-cutting its measures and shifting focus to digital technology side from the traditional services, said a news report.

Cognizant is expected to sack about 350 senior-level employees whose salary package is in the range between Rs 80 lakh and Rs 1.2 crore as part of the company's efforts to reduce costs besides its aggressive plan to shift focus more to digital techology-led services from traditional business, said a report in The Economic Times.

The employees who are facing retrenchment, are in the age group of 50-55 years and most of them are based out of India. The list has been submitted to chief executive officer Brian Humphries’ office, the report said quoting people in the know of the matter.

Cognizant. Pic courtesy: Reuters.

In November this year, Cognizant had said it would slash up to 7,000 jobs in the next few months as part of a cost reduction programme.

Cognizant was expected to remove about 10,000-12,000 mid-to-senior level associates worldwide from their current roles in coming quarters, it said.

The gross reduction is expected to lead to a net reduction of approximately 5,000 to 7,000 roles (about 2 percent of its total headcount) and re-skilling and redeployment of about 5,000 of the total associates impacted.

"We expect the remaining 5,000-7,000 associates to exit the company by mid-2020 either through attrition or role elimination," Cognizant CFO Karen McLoughlin said.

The company has not detailed out the geographies that would be impacted by the reductions.

However, given that India accounts for the biggest share of the company's headcount, the impact of these layoffs is expected to be significant.

In August this year, there were reports that Cognizant might sack a few hundred employees as part of measures to cut costs besides exploring ways to bring down spending.

Under the leadership of Humphries, Cognizant had embarked on a major restructuring process aimed at accelerating growth and at the same time, lowering costs.

Cognizant's total headcount stood at 2,89,900 people at the end of September 2019 quarter. The company had recently stated that its headcount in India has crossed the two-lakh mark.

In May this year too, there were indications that Cognizant was considering job cuts as a part of its realignment programme and most of the slashing was likely to happen in India, the largest offshore delivery location for the US company.

Last week, Cognizant had named Becky Schmitt as its new executive vice-president (EVP) and chief people officer, reported PTI.

Schmitt will succeed Jim Lennox, who is retiring after a 16-year stint with the company. She will join Cognizant on 1 February.

She is currently the senior vice-president and chief people officer at Sam's Club, a $59 billion division of Walmart.

The announcement was made by Humphries in an e-mail to employees.

— With PTI inputs