The software services firm -- India's largest by market cap -- said the reductions would mainly affect employees in middle and senior roles and would be rolled out over the course of this year.

TCS employs 613,000 people worldwide, and the IT services sector is one of India's biggest employers and revenue earners.

The company said the move was part of efforts to become a "future-ready" organisation as it enters new markets and scales up its use of artificial intelligence.

"As part of this journey, we will also be releasing associates from the organisation whose deployment may not be feasible," TCS said in a statement.

It said the restructuring was being carried out with "due care" to avoid disruption to client services.

After TCS's June-quarter revenue fell short of expectations, CEO K Krithivasan said this month that "continued global macro-economic and geopolitical uncertainties caused a demand contraction".

IT services are the most visible part of India's modern economy and historically one of its biggest white-collar job creators, driving the expansion of the middle class.

But a slowdown in the sector has seen hundreds of thousands of new graduates struggle to find work.

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Tata Consultancy Services