The staff strength at three of India’s biggest IT companies has shrunk for the first time. According to the fact sheets of Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services and Tech Mahindra, their combined workforce dropped by nearly 5,000 in the first quarter of 2017-18.

Considered industry bellwether, TCS, India’s largest software services firm, saw the number of its total employees reduce by 1,414 in the quarter that ended June this year as compared to the quarter that ended in March.

In the same period, the employee strength at Infosys, India’s second-largest IT firm, fell by 1,811 people. The workforce at Tech Mahindra, the fifth-largest tech company in the country, shrank by 1,713 people.

Wipro and HCL Technologies, however, were able to add to their staff strength. After acquiring specialised IT services provider InfoSERVER, Wipro brought in 200 new employees, and 1,000 others after one of its clients won a contract in its business process outsourcing work.

If the employees who joined Larsen and Toubro, Mindtree, KPIT Technologies, Hexaware and Cyient are taken into account, India’s top ten IT firms added 205 employees to the sector in the April-June quarter, taking the total strength to more than 10 lakh.