Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has announced layoffs at its robot software firm Intrinsic. The company plans to lay off 20 per cent of its workforce, or 40 employees, according to reports from TechCrunch. The decision was made by Intrinsic’s leadership team, and a company spokesperson stated that it was a difficult decision to let go of team members. This news comes as Alphabet’s division ‘Other Bets’ is impacted by global macroeconomic conditions. Alphabet’s robot software company, Intrinsic, has announced layoffs of 40 employees, or 20 per cent of its total workforce, according to a company spokesperson. The spokesperson…
Author: HRK News Bureau
Crypto.com, a Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange, announced on Friday that it would be cutting its global workforce by approximately 20%. The company’s announcement comes amid worries about reserves and solvency throughout the sector. This statement follows the news that Coinbase Global Inc, announced on Tuesday that it would be laying off around 950 employees, which represents 20% of its staff, as part of a restructure plan. As per Reuters, This is the second round of layoffs for Crypto.com in around six months, the first one being in July last year, when the company had to cut jobs to cope with the…
The Pune Labour Commissioner’s office has issued a notice to Amazon, summoning the company for a meeting on January 17, 2023, in connection with its voluntary separation program (VSP). The meeting is being held in response to a complaint made by Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES), a welfare organization for IT sector employees in India. Amazon and union representatives have been summoned to appear at the Pune Labour Commissioner’s office on January 17 at 3 pm, to address allegations of ‘unethical and illegal’ layoffs at the company. The e-commerce giant, which employs approximately 100,000 workers in India, has implemented…
Ravi Kumar S, the new CEO of Cognizant, will be paid Rs 6 crore as sign-on bonus, which will be a part of his yearly compensation of Rs 57 crore. His basic salary will be about $1 million, that is, about Rs 8,13,57,500. He will also be eligible for a yearly cash incentive of up to $ 2 million. Additionally, he will enjoy stock returns of about $5 million as a one-time hire award. Kumar, who was formerly president, Infosys, will also be part of the board at Cognizant, and be based out of New York. After being successfully associated…
Amidst massive layoffs at Amazon India, the atmosphere is becoming very grim according to an employee who described the scenes at work on an anonymous community app. On the app, called Grapevine, the Indian employee mentions how despite being amongst the retained staff, he does not feel happy or lucky for being amongst the retained staff because ““You can hear people breaking down and crying in the office”. Going by the user name ‘Batman 1’, it is assumed that the employee is a male, who is evidently finding it difficult to work when co-workers are being fired around him. In…
The Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (Coimbatore) or TNSTC had denied maternity leave to a woman employee simply because she had only put in 145 days of service. As per the rules, to avail maternity leave, the employee, who is not a permanent worker, should have put in at least 160 days of service. The writ appeal by the Corporation was dismissed by the Bench consisting Justice S Vaidyanathan and Mohammed Shaffiq, who observed that a woman worker cannot be deprived of maternity benefits basis minor technicalities in the rules. The Court went on to point out to government officials…
Mahindra Logistics, a leading provider of integrated logistics and mobility solutions in India, has announced a partnership with women e-bike riders for last-mile deliveries as part of its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in its workforce. The initiative aims to empower women and ensure their inclusion in all functions of the logistics industry. In the first phase of this initiative, Mahindra Logistics has appointed 11 women riders for last-mile delivery in Mumbai, Bangalore, and Nagpur. The company is providing comprehensive training to the women candidates for safely riding e-bikes, operating last-mile delivery, and developing soft skills. To ensure…
A Walmart employee in Florida is claiming that she was fired from her job after she created a TikTok video showcasing her day at work, which went viral. In the video, which has been viewed over 290,000 times, the worker takes viewers through a 13-hour shift during ‘inventory day’ when she and her coworkers go back and forth between shelves on the floor and the stockroom. The employee, named Steph, mentions that it’s the worst inventory she’s ever done in 20 years of working at Walmart, and that she’s working on 3.5 hours of sleep, having worked 17 hours the…
The emergency ambulance services provided by 108 remained crippled today following a strike by employees. The meeting between the employees and the Health Minister remained inconclusive and the 108 Ambulance Employees Association announced continuation of the strike. The employees of Ziqitza Healthcare, which provides the ambulance services, are demanding the regularization of services, better salaries, Rs 50 lakh accidental insurance cover, and the reinstatement of the sacked employees. Union chief Manpreet Nijjer said the 108 ambulance service was started in 2011 and since 2013, they had not received any increment. He also highlighted the long working hours and lack of…
An accountant in Canada has been ordered by a court to pay her employer $1841 for ‘time theft’ after her employer used tracking software to monitor her working hours while working remotely. Karlee Besse was employed as an accountant for Reach CPA and was given a company laptop on which her employer had installed the tracking software Time Camp. Besse initially claimed that she was fired without cause and sued the company, but Reach CPA presented evidence to the court that Besse had misrepresented her working hours by showing irregularities between her timesheets and the software usage logs. The Time…
Workers in the Chinese city of Chongqing have staged protests after thousands were abruptly laid off by Zybio, a manufacturer of COVID-19 test kits. Online videos show workers vandalizing the company’s offices, demolishing boxes of test kits, and clashing with police in riot gear. The unrest began when the company suddenly laid off nearly 8,000 employees, with workers being told they could leave for the Chinese New Year, two weeks before the occasion. Many of the employees laid off were hired by the company in 2022 to meet the urgent demand for tests under China’s zero-COVID policies. However, after the…
Wipro, a major IT company in India, has distributed 1,27,616 restricted stock units to certain employees under the company’s 2004 Restricted Stock Unit Plan. The grant is effective as of August 11. As per an exchange filing, the scheme comes under the 2007 RSU plan and 84,389 under a 2004 RSU scheme of the company. RSUs are typically awarded to employees once certain employment conditions or performance targets are met and they have a vesting plan and schedule for distribution. Wipro stated that the restricted stock units (RSUs) will vest according to the schedule approved by the Board’s Governance, Nomination,…
During Q3FY23, which ended on December 30, 2022, HCL Technologies hired 5,892 new employees, bringing their total employee count to 222,270. Out of these employees, 207,920 were in technical roles and 14,350 were in sales and support roles. HCL Technologies employee count increased by 2,945 from 219,325 in Q2FY23. The company’s attrition rate (LTM) for the quarter was 21.7 per cent, which was lower compared to the September quarter of the fiscal year where it was at 23.8 per cent. Additionally, 29.2 per cent of HCL Tech’s global workforce is made up of women. In the September quarter, the IT company…
Fast Retailing, a multinational Japanese retail company, has announced plans to raise employee salaries by up to 40 per cent starting March 2023. The company hopes to improve growth and competitiveness by investing in its workforce and aligning with global standards. Fast Retailing is implementing a salary increase in various international markets, with a focus on raising wages in Japan where they have been traditionally low. The company is revising its remuneration table and HR system to better reward employees based on their growth, ambition, and contributions to the business. This will apply to employees at both the headquarters and corporate…
Chasing a target of 50,000 hires at the start of FY23, Infosys managed to hire 40,000 in the first half of the year. Its targets for FY23 have not been changed. Having hired about 6,000 freshers in quarter three of 2022-23, the IT major hopes to fulfil its yearly projection during the year, and has no intention of making any changes to its hiring target. Its freshers’ pipeline is being trained and reskilled as they wait on the bench. Even while organisations, globally, have been laying off employees and looking at ways to cut costs, Infosys has been hiring and…
On Tuesday, Tata Passenger Electric Mobility Limited (TPEML) officially completed the purchase of Ford Motors’ vehicle assembly plant in Sanand. However, only 37 per cent of Ford’s employees decided to join the Tata workforce in Gujarat. The majority of workers who declined the offer cited reluctance to abandon their previous demands made to Ford Motors. On Tuesday, a group of dissatisfied Ford employees met with officials from the Gujarat government’s labour and employment department in Gandhinagar to request assistance. According to Vijay Bapodara, leader of the workers’ union at Ford Motors, the employees who did not accept Tata’s offer letters…
Informatica, has revealed plans to reduce its workforce by 7% in the first quarter of 2023. The layoffs will affect about 450 employees out of the company’s global workforce of over 5,500. Reportedly, the company that specializes in managing data, stated that the layoffs will help them align their workforce with their cloud-based priorities and reduce costs. Informatica stated that it anticipates the layoffs to be finished by the first quarter of 2023, but added that there may be limited exceptions. The company also mentioned that the financial expenses related to the restructuring plan will not be included in its…
Since Elon Musk has taken over Twitter, the company is all over the news. However, it seems that Twitter employees are the ones suffering the most. Twitter employees have reported poor conditions in the office, including stinking bathrooms, lack of toilet paper, and other unpleasant settings. Employees at Twitter’s Singapore office have been forced to vacate the building due to non-payment of rent by Musk. Twitter employees in Singapore were instructed to vacate their office and continue working remotely, according to sources familiar with the matter. The staff were informed via email that they had until 5 p.m. to leave…
The sharper focus on sustainability and environmental responsibility, both by businesses and the youth has set the stage for green jobs to be the drivers of the global economy. And, as India collectively works towards the ambitious goal of Net Zero by 2070, its imperative to develop skills which can match the requirements of these new job roles and maximize on our large youth dividend to achieve to meet our short-term goals. Godrej & Boyce, the flagship company of the Godrej Group, has been focusing on equipping youth to take on future jobs. Whether it is through encouraging employees to…
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest IT services company, has announced that all employees at or below the C2 grade will receive 100 per cent of their quarterly variable pay for the third quarter of the 2022-23 fiscal year. Those above the C2 grade will have their variable pay determined by the company’s business performance. This information was shared in an email from the office of the chief human resource officer, Milind Lakkad. According to an employee at TCS, the C3A grade and above include mid to senior-level employees. They explained that the C2 grade typically includes employees with at…
Microsoft has announced a new policy called ‘Discretionary Time Off’ which will no longer require US employees to formally record vacation, as reported in The Verge. The policy change was announced in an email to employees by Microsoft’s chief people officer, Kathleen Hogan. Many workplaces are becoming more flexible with time-off policies, such as offering more vacation days and providing childcare leaves to male employees. Following this trend, Microsoft also aims to modernize the company’s vacation policy to a more flexible model. Under the new policy, starting January 6, in addition to unlimited vacation days, Microsoft employees will also be…
The state government of Maharashtra has decided to accept a report from the K P Bakshi Committee on revising the salaries of state government employees. This decision will result in an additional cost of Rs 240 crore for the state. The benefits outlined in the report will take effect on the first day of the month following the official release of the order. The state finance department presented the proposal in a meeting presided over by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. The Bakshi Committee’s report reconciles the findings of the sixth and seventh pay commission reports and resolves any discrepancies between…
As reported by IANS, Scale AI, a software company based in the US, has laid off 20 per cent of its workforce. The company specialises in using both software and human labour to label data for businesses developing machine learning algorithms. Alexandr Wang, founder and CEO, Scale AI, stated in a blogpost, “I have made the difficult decision to reduce the size of our team by 20 per cent, which means saying goodbye to many talented Scaliens.” He also mentions how the sales of the company expanded during 2021-2022, and hence they decided to augment the number of employees expecting…
Futurense Technologies is gearing to hire over 600 data engineers for the year 2023. The three-year old startup positioned as the ‘Godfather of Talent’, backs talent from smaller towns to fix India’s demand-supply challenge. Its ‘zero cost’ training model is poised to transform the tech talent market. The Company that trains fresh and lateral hires in tech and soft skills from a state-of-the-art training facility in Bengaluru, offers each employee customized training and coaching support. According to Raghav Gupta, co-founder and chief executive officer, Futurense Technologies, believes, “These are challenging times for businesses across sectors. Yet, we believe that the…
As per PTI, the Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment Department in Odisha has issued an ultimatum to its employees, stating that if they do not submit information about their property by January 31, their salaries will be withheld starting this February. This directive comes after a similar announcement made by the state’s General Administration and Public Grievances department. The submission of the property statement document is a mandatory requirement for all government officials in the state as per the Odisha Government Service Conduct (Amendment) Rules, 2021. The department has informed this through a recent order. As mentioned by Odisha TV, the…
Anushree Singh, who had last served as director – HR, label & graphic materials, South Asia at Avery Dennison from 2017 to 2019, before joining AkzoNobel in July 2019, is now back at Avery Dennison. This time, she has joined as HR director – EMEA, apparel solutions. An alumna of Indian Institute of Planning and Management, Singh started her HR journey with Standard Chartered Bank as associate manager – HR back in 2005. In 2007, she joined Xerox as deputy manager and had moved up to senior manager level by 2010. Her next stop was Aircel, where she joined as…