IT major Cognizant has reportedly laid off 200 senior employees with a severance payout of 3-4 months, according to a Times of India report. These employees are mainly from the director level and above.

This exercise reportedly took place through July and was completed in August. As per the report, the IT major also offered a voluntary separation scheme to 400 senior employees last year. The programme this year was reportedly not voluntary.

However, a Cognizant spokesperson told TNM that Cognizant did not initiated a voluntary separation program in 2018.

“As part of our ongoing workforce management strategy, we ensure we have the right employee skill sets necessary to meet client needs and achieve our business goals.  This process has resulted in changes, including some employees transitioning out of the company. We continue to enhance our capabilities and hire for roles across all our practice areas in the company.  Details of severance or any other conditions of employment are confidential,” the spokesperson said.

Employees who were laid off were reportedly asked to sign a release agreement, which stated that they acknowledge that no legal action will be taken against the company or its directors or its officers. 

In fact, the layoffs we reported by Economic Times on August 3 that Cognizant said it would look at cutting senior-level jobs, because of which the company would incur as much as $35 million in severance costs.  

At the time, Raj Mehta, president at Cognizant, told ET in an interview that this layoff, which unline last year isn’t voluntary, is targeted towards senior executives, which would allow its associates to grow.

With digitalization and emerging technologies coming into play, the IT industry has been seeing layoffs over the past year or two. There were media reports last year that a staggering 56,000 techies could be fired.