India’s multinational IT firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), with a highly skilled workforce of over 600,000 employees in 55 countries, is under the microscope of the US senators. This unexpected, but challenging clash, is taking place at a crucial time when India and the US are continuing the much-publicised marathon trade negotiations to successfully conclude an interim bilateral trade deal.

Mumbai: These are the days of geoeconomics, and multinational companies, including India’s Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) can no longer confine themselves to traditional economics and unjustifiable hire and fire practices.

India’s multinational IT firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), with a highly skilled workforce of over 600,000 employees in 55 countries, is under the microscope of the US senators. This unexpected, but challenging clash, is taking place at a crucial time when India and the US are continuing the much-publicised marathon trade negotiations to successfully conclude an interim bilateral trade deal. 

In a recent letter to TCS CEO K Krithivasan, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley and ranking member Richard Durbin noted that the company has announced plans to layoff over 12,000 employees worldwide, including American staff.

According to the letter, TCS laid off nearly five dozen employees in its Jacksonville office alone. Reportedly, TCS was already under investigation by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for allegedly firing older American workers in favour of newly hired South-Asian H-1B employees. The $100,000 fee will start to impact from FY27 onwards, when new petitions are filed. The letter said that the company “is doing itself no favours by replacing Americans with H-1Bs while this investigation is ongoing”.

The letter also comes at a time when H-1B visa filings have come under intense scrutiny. “With all of the homegrown American talent relegated to the sidelines, we find it hard to believe that TCS cannot find qualified American tech workers to fill these positions,” The letter cited data from fiscal year 2025, when TCS received approval to hire 5,505 H-1B employees, noting this made the company the second-largest employer of newly-approved H-1B beneficiaries in the US. The Senators have raised nine questions for TCS, and sought detailed responses with data by October 10, 2025.

Among various questions, it asked why TCS is hiring foreign tech workers when hundreds of thousands of American tech workers have been laid off over the past few years, and whether the company makes a ‘good faith effort’' to fill open positions with Americans before filing H-1B petitions. “Has TCS displaced any American employees with H-1B employees,” Senators asked in the letter.