Close on the heels of Uber laying off almost a quarter of its staff, cab aggregator, Ola, is also asking nearly 1,400 employees to leave. , or about 25 percent of its total workforce.
The slashing of 25 per cent of the workforce was announced in an e-mail sent by Bhavish Aggarwal, CEO, Ola, to the staff.
As per the e-mail, the Company had initially hoped that the crisis would not last long, but soon realised otherwise. And therefore, it had to take the tough decision of slashing 1400 valuable jobs.
The employees who have been asked to leave will receive a fixed salary for three months, along with benefits, such as ESOPs and company insurance till the end of the year.
Aggarwal has also confirmed in the e-mail that this is a one-time exercise, and that there will be no further layoffs resulting from the impact of the pandemic.
By the end of this week, the exercise will be finished for Ola’s India Mobility business and a week later for Ola Foods and Ola Financial Services.
There has been a drastic fall, of about 95 per cent, in business for the ride-hailing company in the past couple of months, due to the lockdown. The Government had banned cab aggregators in all the cities. Despite relaxations happening, operations of cab aggregators are likely to remain suspended in metros, such as Mumbai.
In Aggarwal’s words, “It is going to take a long time for people to go out and about like before. With more companies preferring to have a large number of employees work from home, air travel limited to essential trips and vacations being put off for better times, the impact of this crisis is definitely going to be long-drawn for us. The world is not going to revert to the pre-COVID era anytime soon.”
