Security Staff Acquisition & Development

Cognizant Layoffs 2017: 2,600 to 5,200 Job Cuts?

Cognizant (CTSH) is expected to make an undisclosed number of job cuts after the company completes annual employee reviews sometime around March 31, 2017, multiple reports suggest.

Cognizant, one of the world's best-known professional services companies, had about 266,000 employees as of Q4 2016. The company has been known to trim 1 percent to 2 percent of its employees annually. That would potentially place this year's cuts in the 2,600 to 5,200 person range.

Although Cognizant won't discuss target figures publicly, the numbers will become clearer to the company once an employee appraisal process wraps up at the end of March, a spokesperson told The Financial Times.

Cognizant will announce its next quarterly results on May 4, according to Yahoo finance. For its Q4 2016, revenues were $3.46 billion, up 7.1 percent from the year prior.

In recent months, Cognizant has been aggressively scaling its digital capabilities while exploring strategic tuck-in acquisitions. The company also is driving "leverage in its cost structure," according to a February statement from Cognizant. That sounds like a euphemism for layoffs.

Cognizant, like many IT consulting firms, has closely tracked President Donald Trump's statements about potential outsourcing taxes. Cognizant has roughly 150,000 employees in India.

Joe Panettieri

Joe Panettieri is co-founder & editorial director of MSSP Alert and ChannelE2E, the two leading news & analysis sites for managed service providers in the cybersecurity market.