After top companies like Twitter, Meta, and Apple laid off thousands of employees last year, the Indian tech industry is also facing a hard time as layoffs continue. The latest report is that ShareChat — which has Google as an investor — announced it will let go of 20% of its workforce. But ShareChat is not the only tech player in India, which is looking at job cuts, with major ed-tech companies and other players also taking similar measures. Even Goldman Sachs has fired close to 700 employees in India. Here’s a quick look at the most recent layoffs in the Indian tech industry amid looming economic slowdowns.
ShareChat
ShareChat, after laying off 5 percent of its staff in December last year, is back with a fresh round of job cuts. Mohalla Tech, which is the parent company behind ShareChat and Moj, is laying off 20% of staff or more than 400 employees. Most of the affected employees will be based in India. While the short-form video-sharing platform saw massive popularity during the pandemic, the growth has since plateaued amid tough competition from Instagram. ShareChat says that the decision was taken “in light of the growing market consensus that investment sentiments will remain very cautious throughout this year.”
Hello
Ola has started to layoff over 200 employees from Ola Cabs, Ola Electric and Ola Financial Services verticals as part of its restructuring exercises. While the company had announced that it would be laying off employees back in September, it appears that those job cuts had been delayed until now.
Last year, Ola shut down its used vehicle business Ola Cars along with store-to-door delivery service Ola Dash. The company seems to be shifting its focus to engineering with a recent announcement saying that it plans to hire 5,000 engineers for its electric vehicle verticals. Stronger workforce in this particular vertical will help the company expand its capabilities across EV and battery manufacturing and the development of autonomous driving tech.
Amazon
Amazon recently announced that it will lay off over 18,000 employees from January 18. The company cited an “uncertain economy” as the reason for the firings. These numbers are twice the initial announcement from November, which trumpeted the layoffs of over 10,000 employees. The majority of these eliminations are from Amazon Stores and PXT (People Experience and Technology Solutions) teams. Amid these layoffs, an Amazon employee anonymously took to GrapeVine to describe the “current condition” at the company’s Indian offices. They said that 75 percent of their team is gone and were deeply impacted by the layoffs.
Byju’s
EdTech giant Byju’s announced last month that it would be cutting its workforce of 50,000 by 5 percent by March this year to lower costs. The company already laid off about 100 employees from its media content division in Kerala. In an email to employees, Byju Raveendran, the CEO of the company says that the job cuts are a result of adverse macroeconomic factors, forcing focus on capital-efficient growth and sustainability. The layoffs are happening at a time when schools and colleges have reopened and learning has moved onto a mix of online and offline classes.
Dunzo
Indian quick-grocery delivery service Dunzo confirmed on Monday that it has laid off 3 percent of its workforce amid cost-cutting measures. Company CEO, Kabir Biswas, said that the company’s looking at team structures and network design to build efficiency. The platform also said that it’s extending the best support possible to ease the process for the employees during the transition, although it did not provide a lot of details.
UpGrad
Byju’s isn’t the only EdTech unicorn in India seeing job cuts, as the EdTech scene as a whole is facing widening losses in recent times. Another such company is UpGrad, whose CEO, Arjun Mohan recently resigned from his position amid challenges and layoffs. The platform is reportedly planning on laying off about a third or more of its workforce in the days to come, even as the company has denied any such reports. upGrad-Owned Harappa Education, another EdTech platform owned by Upgrad has already laid off around 40% of its workforce or 73 employees.
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