New Delhi: Employees at Indias largest IT services firm TCS will have to wait for salary hikes as the company announced that it would defer employee salary hikes that were scheduled to begin in April 2025. Citing global economic uncertainty and tariff concerns as the main reasons behind the deferment the company said that it will decide on wage hikes during this year. The Indian stock markets were closed on Thursday April 10 on account of Shri Mahavir Jayanti and amidst this Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) lost Rs 24295 crore in its market cap in a holiday-shortened week from April 7 to 11. The valuation of TCS tanked Rs 24295.46 crore to Rs 1169474.43 crore after the companys share declined by 3.82 per cent during the period and closed at Rs 3238 on Friday April 11. This week the BSE benchmark Sensex declined 207.43 points or 0.27 per cent. The NSE Nifty dipped 75.9 points or 0.33 per cent. TCS Chief HR Officer Milind Lakkad said on Thursday April 10 Because of the uncertain environment we will decide during the year on wage hikes. It can be at anytime depending on business. Fresher hiring will be similar or may be higher in FY26. Meanwhile TCS CEO and MD K Krithivasan talked about the US tariff. He believes that the tariff moves-induced uncertainty impacting the sector will be short-lived and expects it to get resolved within months. On Thursday TCS also reported a 1.68 per cent dip in its consolidated net profit to Rs 12224 crore for the March 2025 quarter. It reported a total revenue of Rs 64479 crore in Q4 FY25 up 5.3 per cent over the year-ago period. For the full year FY25 TCS net profit rose 5.76 per cent year-on-year to Rs 48553 crore. The IT heavyweight wrapped up the fiscal FY25 with a full-year topline growth of 5.99 per cent at Rs 255324 crore. TCS Q4 report card comes amid storm clouds over the global economy triggered by US now-on now-off tariff posturing that has thrown the world into a tizzy. TCS had on Thursday reported a 1.7 per cent decline in the March quarter net profit to Rs 12224 crore driven largely by a margin contraction. It also announced that it will be deferring wage hikes to its 6.07 lakh employees due to the business uncertainties triggered by the tariff issues. TCS hired 42000 freshers from campuses in FY25 and will maintain or improve on the number in FY26. (With PTI inputs)