Key facts
- Around 35,000 tech jobs may be eliminated this year
- Cuts driven by AI replacing entry- and mid-level IT roles
- Job losses happening quietly via attrition freezes and contract non-renewals
- Testing, coding support, and BPO roles most at risk
India's IT sector is shedding jobs at a pace that official announcements rarely capture. Around 35,000 tech positions may be eliminated this year, according to reports in The Times of India and The Economic Times, as artificial intelligence steadily automates the work that has historically absorbed hundreds of thousands of Indian engineers annually.
The phenomenon is being described as 'silent layoffs' — a term that captures how different this wave of job destruction is from the mass redundancies of previous downturns. Companies are not issuing press releases or severance packages at scale. Instead, benches are being quietly shrunk, contract renewals are not happening, and new hiring is being frozen at the entry and junior levels where AI tools are most capable of substituting human effort.
The roles most at risk are in software testing, basic coding, IT support, and business process outsourcing — precisely the segments that have historically served as the first rungs on the career ladder for India's vast engineering graduate population. As large-cap IT firms deploy AI coding assistants and automated quality-assurance tools, the need for junior engineers to perform these tasks diminishes sharply.
The wider implications are significant for India's economy and social fabric. The IT sector has been one of the most reliable engines of upward mobility for India's middle class over the past three decades. A structural contraction in entry-level hiring, even without dramatic headlines, could reshape expectations for millions of students currently enrolled in engineering programmes — and raise urgent questions for policymakers about skilling, reskilling, and what the next generation of Indian tech employment actually looks like.