Uber Cuts 3,300 Jobs, Orders Remaining 29,000 Staff Back to Office Under Strict Hybrid Policy

Uber’s layoff memo not only cut about 3,300 jobs but also announced a major shift in workplace policy: nearly all of the remaining 29,000 employees must relocate to offices, with fully remote roles capped at just 1% of the workforce. The company is enforcing a strict three‑day‑a‑week hybrid model and tying team locations to designated hubs.

Key Takeaways from Uber’s Memo

• Layoffs: About 10% of corporate staff (≈3,300 employees) were cut, mainly in management and coordination roles.
• Remote work cap: Only ~1% of employees will remain fully remote, a sharp reduction from pandemic-era flexibility.
• Hybrid policy: All employees must work at least three days per week in the office, with attendance tracked.
• Relocation requirement: Remote staff are asked to move near designated offices; the memo frames this as “jobs now come with a postcode.”
• Hub strategy:
  • Global teams → New York & San Francisco
  • Regional teams → Regional hubs
  • Local teams → Country hubs
  • Engineering → Tech hubs

Why Uber Is Making This Change

• Collaboration focus: CEO Dara Khosrowshahi emphasized that “sitting together and solving problems in person works better” than remote alternatives.
• Simplification: The restructuring reduces management layers and “micro-teams” to streamline decision-making.
• Location clarity: By concentrating teams in hubs, Uber aims to reduce overlap and improve accountability.

Impact on Employees

• Relocation stress: Staff in smaller offices face uncertainty about both job security and whether they must move cities.
• Early-career employees: Specifically singled out as needing in-person mentorship, discouraging isolated remote work.
• Compliance enforcement: Unlike many companies with flexible hybrid policies, Uber will actively monitor attendance.

Risks & Trade-offs

• Employee morale: Forced relocations may lead to attrition, especially among workers who value flexibility.
• Talent pool shrinkage: Limiting remote roles could reduce Uber’s ability to hire globally.
• Operational clarity vs. disruption: While the hub model simplifies coordination, it disrupts employees’ personal lives and may increase costs.

Policy Shift Comparison

Policy	Before Memo	After Memo
Remote work	Flexible, many roles remote	Capped at 1%
Hybrid work	3 days/week (loosely enforced)	3 days/week (strictly enforced)
Team location	Dispersed globally	Concentrated in hubs
Management	Multiple layers, micro-teams	Reduced layers, broader scopes

Amid Layoffs in US, IBM To Shift Hiring to India

IBM is reportedly laying off nearly 9,000 employees across multiple locations in the United States, including California, New York, Texas, and North Carolina. A significant portion of these layoffs is affecting the Cloud Classic division, with IBM shifting employment to India as part of its restructuring strategy.

Some laid-off employees were reportedly asked to train their replacements in India before leaving.

The company’s CEO, Arvind Krishna, has previously emphasized a shift in labor focus to India, reinforcing this trend.

A major portion of these layoffs is affecting the Cloud Classic division, with IBM shifting employment to India as part of its cost-cutting strategy.

IBM has been expanding its hiring in India with more job openings listed than in the U.S. The company has reportedly instructed some laid-off employees to train their replacements in India before leaving. This move aligns with IBM’s broader workforce strategy, which emphasizes cost-cutting and labor realignment.

IBM has been expanding its hiring in India listing 173 open positions since January and 2,946 openings since November last year.

Additionally, IBM has introduced a return-to-office mandate, requiring employees to work on-site at least three days a week starting in late April. Badge swipes are being monitored, and medical exemptions are reportedly discouraged.

The company is shifting jobs to India, where it can leverage a large pool of skilled professionals at lower costs. This move aligns with IBM’s long-term focus on cloud computing, AI, cybersecurity, and enterprise IT solutions.

This move aligns with broader trends in the tech industry, where companies like Meta and Google have also been shifting jobs to India.

2023 Worst for Tech Employees, 2 Lakh Tech Employees Lost Jobs So Far This Year

The year 2023 has become the worst year for tech employees. So far, the year-2023 saw about 2 lakh technical employees dismissed globally from Big Tech firms to startups. Companies like Meta, BT, Vodafone and many others have announced more staff layoffs in the coming months.

According to data from layoff tracking site Layoffs.fyi, Tech layoffs in 2023 surpassed the entire total from 2022 in early April this year. In first quarter of 2023, 166,004 employees laid off, and to date 695 tech companies have fired around 1.98 lakh employees.

Last year, 1,046 tech companies laid off more than 1.61 lakh employees. In January alone this year, around 1 lakh technical employees globally lost jobs. Companies laying-off employees include Amazon, Google and Microsoft. From 2022 to May–2023 , about 3.6 lakh technical workers have lost jobs.

Companies citing reasons for layoffs are — over-hiring, uncertain global macroeconomic conditions, etc. Meta ( formerly Facebook ) is reportedly going to start retrenchment of more employees in its third round of job cuts next week. It is expected that the company will lay off about 6,000 employees in this round.

Amazon India has fired around 400-500 employees from various departments this month. Fintech Unicorn Jeps is retrenching 420 employees, or 26 percent of its workforce. UK telecom giant BT Group has announced plans to cut 55,000 jobs by the end of the decade.

Global telecom carrier Vodafone said it plans to reduce 11,000 jobs over the next three years with the aim of simplifying both headquarters and local markets. Meanwhile, Microsoft has denied any details in the salaries of its employees this year.

Early this month, it was reported that Shopify is laying off 20% of its employees. It previously cut 10% last July. LinkedIn is laying off 716 employees, which is 4% of its total workforce.

MakeMyTrip Lays off 350 Employees Due to COVID-19 Impact

Online travel firm MakeMyTrip has laid off 350 employees due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its business.

Most of the fired employees are in international holidays and related line of business, according to sources.

In an email to employees, MakeMyTrip Group Executive Chairman and founder Deep Kalra and Group CEO Rajesh Magow said even as times remain unpredictable, what is evident is that the impact of COVID-19 crisis is going to be long drawn for the company.

It is unclear when travelling will become a way of life, as it was pre-COVID, they added.

"Over the past two months, we have analysed impact closely and have spent considerable time thinking about the path to business recovery. As a result, it's become agonisingly clear that there are certain lines of business that are far deeply affected and will take much longer than the others to recover," they said.

It is evident that the pandemic has changed the context and viability of some of business lines in its current form, the mail said.

"Keeping this in mind we have had to take this sad but inevitable decision of rightsizing our workforce in these businesses," Kalra and Magow said.

When asked about the number of employees that have been impacted, a company spokesperson confirmed that 350 employees have been impacted.

"To compassionately take care of the employees who have been impacted, we have tried to do our best to offer support including Mediclaim coverage for individuals and their families till the end of the year, leave encashment, gratuity, retaining the right to exercise part of RSUs as applicable, retention of company laptops and outplacement support apart from salary payments as per their notice periods," they said.

Kalra and Magow also said that it was undoubtedly the toughest decision, "we have had to take so far and it's the saddest day for us as an organisation". PTI AKT

BookMyShow Lays Off, Furloughs 270 Employees

Online ticket booking platform BookMyShow has laid off or furloughed 270 employees as it expects its revenue to be "greatly reduced" in the coming months, hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown.

Several tech-led businesses including Ola, Uber, Zomato and Swiggy have laid off hundreds of employees in the past few weeks as they struggle against reduced earnings and uncertain business environment.

"...we have had to resort to the task of reducing our costs to align them with what we believe will be greatly reduced revenues in the months to come...Out of 1,450 employees at BookMyShow in India and globally, about 270 employees across various functions and teams, will be impacted through this exercise," BookMyShow chief executive Ashish Hemrajani said in an email to employees.

This includes those who will be put on furloughs, along with those who we will have to part ways with, at least, as of now, he added.

He said the company has tried to do it best to offer financial support, continued health insurance cover and outplacement support for those impacted by the downsizing exercise.

Hemrajani said the teams that are staying back have voluntarily taken salary cuts ranging from 10 per cent to 50 per cent at the leadership level, given up their bonuses and all salary raises.

The company has cut all other expenses and renegotiated with vendors, partners and landlords and after exhausting all other cost-saving measures, it took the decision as a "last resort", he said, adding that the layoffs are "not a reflection" of the individual's performance or ability.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown, multiplexes, theatres and stadiums were closed and people stayed indoors, which impacted these businesses as well as those in ancillary services. PTI SR

CarDekho Lays Off Staff, Cuts Salary amid COVID-19 Crisis

CarDekho has laid off employees and slashed salaries as the automobile portal looks to tide over the disruptions caused by COVID-19 pandemic that has badly hit the Indian auto sector.

While the company did not comment on the number of employees being laid off, reports suggest the number is as high as 200.

When contacted, Girnarsoft Group - that runs CarDekho - said COVID-19 has led to disruptions across industries and auto is one of the worst hit sectors.

"We were constrained to look at rightsizing and salary cuts in a few businesses given period of slow recovery and in some cases permanent change in pattern of consumer spends," it said in an e-mailed statement.

The company said through the month of March till recently, teams across the board took measures to control costs, including the leadership team taking voluntary salary cuts effective April.

According to the reports, salaries have been slashed by 12-15 per cent depending on the pay packages, while senior management has taken a 45 per cent salary cut.

"To help this transition, we not only cover the impacted employees financially but have also set-up an intermediary support system to guide them towards opportunities inside and outside the organization. We are also encouraging and are providing well-rounded support for entrepreneurial opportunities with the organisation. These are testing times and we hope we come out of this much stronger than before," it said.

In the past few weeks, a number of tech-led businesses like Uber, Zomato and Swiggy have announced layoffs as the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown dried up demand and ravaged businesses. Last week, Ola had said it is laying off 1,400 staff from rides, financial services and food business, while ShareChat handed pink slips to 101 employees.

According to a survey by industry body Nasscom, about 90 per cent startups said they are facing a decline in revenues, and about 30-40 per cent indicated temporarily halting their operations or in the process of closing down.

About 70 per cent startups surveyed said they have a cash runway of fewer than three months, the most affected being the early stage and mid-stage start-ups.

With businesses seeing significant impact due to the COVID-19 pandemic, startups are forced to freeze hiring, slash salaries and lay off people to steer through the crisis. PTI

Uber Cuts 3,000 Jobs as Virus Slashes Payroll by 25%

Uber has cut 3,000 jobs from its workforce, its second major wave of layoffs in two weeks as the coronavirus slashed demand for rides.

The San Francisco company has cut a quarter of its workforce since the year began, eliminating 3,700 people from the payroll earlier this month.

Uber will be re-focusing on its core business, moving people and delivering food and groceries, said CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, in a note to employees.

The ride-hailing giant will be closing or consolidating 45 offices globally, and almost all departments will be affected by layoffs. The company is closing its Incubator and AI Labs and will pursue strategic alternatives for its job recruiting app, Uber Works, Khosrowshahi said.

“This is a decision I struggled with,” Khosrowshahi said. “Our balance sheet is strong, Eats is doing great, Rides looks a little better, maybe we can wait this damn virus out...I wanted there to be a different answer...but there simply was no good news to hear.” The rides business, Uber's main profit generator, fell 80%, he said.

“Ultimately, I realized that hoping the world would return to normal within any predictable timeframe, so we could pick up where we left off on our path to profitability, was not a viable option,” he said.

Uber lost $2.9 billion in the first quarter as the coronavirus pandemic decimated its overseas investments. Companies that rely on the sharing economy have been hit hard by the pandemic, as people stay indoors and shy away from shared services to reduce the spread.

Lyft, Uber's main U.S. rival, laid off 982 people last month, or 17% of its workforce because of plummeting demand. Careem, Uber's subsidiary in the Middle East, cut its workforce by 31%.

Uber estimates it will incur $175 million to $220 million in charges related to the restructuring, including severance, other benefits and office closing costs, according to a federal filing. Combined with the earlier layoffs, the changes are designed to save $1 billion annually.

One silver lining is that Uber's Eats business has become more important to people staying home and restaurants, and delivery is here to stay, Khosrowshahi said.

“We no longer need to look far for the next enormous growth opportunity: we are sitting right on top of one,” Khosrowshahi said.
He cautioned, however, that the growth in Eats does not come close to covering expenses.

"I have every belief that the moves we are making will get Eats to profitability, just as we did with Rides, but it's not going to happen overnight," Khosrowshahi said. (AP)

E-Scooter Startup Bird Laying Off Nearly A Third of Its Workforce Due to Coronavirus

Electric-scooter startup Bird on Friday said it is laying off nearly a third of its workforce to survive damage done to its service by the coronavirus pandemic.

Bird has already paused shared scooter operations in many markets around the world and drastically cut spending, and is now "saying goodbye" to 30 per cent of its workforce, founder and chief executive Travis VanderZanden said in a memo to employees at the Southern California-based company.

"We've watched the COVID-19 pandemic radically and quickly transform our lives, the world, and our business in less than a month," VanderZanden said in the memo, a copy of which was shared with AFP.

"Given the unknown timeline and current economic situation, we were forced to cut back in this way to elongate the trajectory of Bird and our mission." Bird recently raised hundreds of millions of dollars from investors, but is slashing costs to ensure it has enough money to keep it running through next year, according to VanderZanden.
Bird is curbing all spending not related to keeping the startup afloat, according to the chief executive.

"History suggests that people will demand a large scale mobility option that still allows for personal distancing," VanderZanden said.
"And Bird will be there."

Bird workers losing jobs were assured severance pay and extended health plan coverage.

"This once in a decade black swan event presents one of the greatest challenges in history," VanderZanden said in the memo.

Transport company Lime last week pulled its electric scooters from nearly two dozen countries, including the United States, as the new coronavirus spread worldwide.

"Like you, we are worried about the cities we love and call home, the people we serve, and our colleagues on the ground," said Brad Bao, the chief executive and founder of Lime.

Bao said in cities where the scooters will still be available, the company is taking extra precautions including "cleaning all parts of the scooter that are touched by people." Nonetheless, Bao said, customers should wipe down scooters or bikes before using them and wear gloves as a precaution. (AFP)

OYO to Lay Off over 1000 People in India as Part of Restructuring Exercise

Hospitality firm OYO is planning to let go over 1,000 people in India as part of its restructuring and reorganisation of teams across businesses and functions to trim redundancy.

In an internal mail to the employees of OYO in India and South Asia, the company's founder and Group CEO Ritesh Agarwal said that asking some of the colleagues to move to a new career outside of OYO has not been an 'easy decision'.

Though the mail to the employees did not provide the numbers of people that are being laid off, sources in the know of the matter put the number at more than 1,000 and said the reason was 'right-sizing'.

One of the implications of the new strategic objectives for 2020, is that, like the leadership team, OYO will reorganise more teams across businesses and functions, Agarwal said.

The strategic objectives of the company are: sustainable growth, operational and customer excellence, profitability, and training and governance, he added.

And this means that, unfortunately, some roles at OYO will become redundant as the company further drives tech-enabled synergy, enhanced efficiency and removes duplication of effort across businesses or geographies, Agarwal said.

"As a result, we are asking some of our impacted colleagues to move to a new career outside of OYO. This has not been an easy decision for us," he added.

OYO is doing everything it can to ensure that the outgoing colleagues receive as much assistance and support as possible through this transition, Agarwal said.

"Every OYOpreneur is important to OYO and ensuring their well-being both during and after their tenure is our number one priority. I want to thank them for their efforts and apologize for the impact this is causing," he added.

Over the past few months, OYO has "also successfully transitioned many of our colleagues into more meaningful roles within OYO by providing mentorship, training and tools to be successful," he added.

OYO has also streamlined the organization by driving synergies across business lines and removing duplication of efforts in some of every day manual processes, he added.

As an organisation, OYO stands strong with its people - not just with those who are impacted, but also with those who will remain an integral part of OYO beyond today, Agarwal said. PTI AKT

Zomato Lays Off 60 from Customer Support in Gurugram for 'Redundancies'

Online restaurant guide and food ordering firm Zomato has laid off around 60 employees mainly from its customer support department in Gurugram on account of 'redundancies'.

"Over the last few months, our service quality has improved, and the percentage of orders requiring support has come down significantly creating redundancies for about 1 per cent (60 people) of our workforce," a company spokesperson said in a statement.

Most of these redundancies are in the customer support department and also include movements to other departments as part of our internal job placement (IJP) exercise, it added.

"As we've expanded to over 500 cities across India we also expanded our workforce by over 2,000 and this requires constant realignment to new departments and results in some redundancies with the scaling of technology," the statement said.

Zomato provides in-depth information for over 1.4 million restaurants across 24 countries and serves more than 70 million users every month. PTI AKT

Sequoia-backed Urban Ladder Downsizes 25% of Employees in Jan-March

UPDATE - 11 June 2019

The following are Ashish Goel's (CEO of Urban Ladder) remarks on the sudden reportage of the employee layoffs that occurred nearly three months ago

[blockquote footer="Ashish Goel"]As an organization, February and March were not easy months for us, as we are a company that deeply appreciates its employees. Having said that, after taking those tough calls, we are happy to know that the employees we did part ways with have used Urban Ladder as a great stepping stone to pursue other, great opportunities within the industry and beyond.

We look forward to the future as we have some exciting things in store in the upcoming few months.[/blockquote]

In February/March, 90 employees (from the head office alone) had been let go from the organization - the previous total headcount number was 957 and now is 711 which amounts to about 25% (and not 40% as sources online have revealed today) which includes third party employees and resources.

---

Online furniture retailing startup Urban Ladder is breathing shallow and in order to survive the Sequoia Capital backed furniture retailer has downsized its total workforce by 40% 25% and even top executives made exits from the startup in last few months, reported Business Line.

According to the report, which refers industry sources including former Urban Ladder employees, the Bangalore-based startup let go of 40% of its employees in the quarter that ended in March. The Business Line report also cites that its leadership team claims it is just a couple of months away from turning EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) positive.

The downsizing of employees were carried out across all levels, functions and geographies and now the company counts 700 s its total headcounts, said the report.

Just two years back, Urban Ladder had hired Ajit Joshi as President and COO of the company however within mere two years he has resigned in March, citing personal reasons. Joshi is a retail veteran with 30 years of experience And prior to Urban Ladder he used to drive the business at electronics retailer Croma (a Tata Enterprise) as its CEO and MD.

Besides Joshi, other top executives have also moved on and those were heading Urban Clap's various functions, including Operations and Supply Chain, Sales and Marketing, Product, Engineering and HR.

Unable to raise more funding as well not turning profitable were the major reasons cited by the Urban Ladder management to the employees who were handed pink slips. Launched in 2012, Urban Ladder has raised a total of about $112 Mn in eight rounds far, with last funding came in debt fundraise from Trifecta Capital.

When asked why the company resorted to a second round of layoffs, Ashish Goel, co-founder and CEO of Urban Ladder, said it was absolutely necessary. “We had no other option. We would have shut down if we hadn’t asked them to leave,” said the report citing the CEO.

Ashish Goel further said in a statement, "We have made more than our share of mistakes and have made some tough, painful decisions and gone through a reset from January to March. Now, we are on track to be profitable at the EBITDA level next month and our goal is to deliver ₹8-10 crore of EBITDA this fiscal. It’s not a big number, but it is a start."

Urban Clap, which also counts Ratan Tata as its investor, had tied up with Tata Housing in early 2017, to offer design solutions for homes in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Gurgaon with its exclusive range of products.

Later in August of same year, the startup received single brand retail trade (SBRT) licence wherein the company is allowed to on-board foreign players to have 49% stake under automatic route, and FDI beyond 49% and up to 100% through government approval route.

However, the newly introduced FDI policy in e-commerce is said to be primary reason behind Urban Ladder’s inability to raise funds from new investors as the new FDI norms are making potential investors cautious. “With little or no resources to continue with operations till things played out, Urban Ladder was forced to resort to mass layoffs,” said one of the sources of the report.

Home Service Startup HouseJoy Lays Off Over 40 Employees Amid Funding Crunch

Matrix Partners-backed home services startup Housejoy, which last raised funding in December 2015, has reportedly laid off more than 40 employees across its departments to check mounting cost structures at a time of slow revenue growth.

Citing an industry insider, the report said that the startup has showed the exit route to employees at mid-management levels across its digital marketing, technical and back-end operations teams.

Housejoy, which last raised $23 million in Series-B lead by Amazon, in December'15, is also on verge of shutting down its categories that offer little or no unit margins such as specialized lifestyle and health services.

Additionally, according to one of Housejoy employee cited in the report, the startup is looking to turn the platform to a marketplace model and gradually reducing its exposure to operationally-intensive categories. The company would now focus mainly on fulfillment categories such as beauty and selective home services (handyman services) that enable a transaction model.

Moreover, the startup had also explored a potential sale to OLX India, Quikr and UrbanClap in the past two-three quarters, but the talks did not materialize, said the report citing a person aware of the negotiations.

Housejoy is now looking to focus on categories where it can provide service through the platform, thereby increasing scope for revenue accruals rather than just leadbased services where the cost of acquiring a customer is much higher than the revenue earned.

Industry experts peg this operational burn to have further increased in this financial year with Housejoy struggling to raise funds for last three years.

To recall, Housejoy has made its first acquisition when it bought online laundry services player , at an undisclosed amount, in February 2016.

In August 2016, Housejoy has launched the first of its kind Geo-Targeted technology in all 8 cities it operates, and at that time Housejoy website and the app also unveiled refreshingly new look with captivating content , transparency in pricing and clear information on services offered from the start to its completion and various customizations available for all its 12 categories of that time.

The online services market in India crossed $70 million in 2017 and at a compound annual growth rate of about 60%, the market is expected to grow to $300 million by 2020, according to Redseer Consulting.

In January 2017, Mumbai based home & beauty services startup Taskbob, owned by Crenovative Ideas, had to shut down its operations as the startup failed to raise fresh funds for one year.

Home Service Startup HouseJoy Lays Off Over 40 Employees Amid Funding Crunch

Matrix Partners-backed home services startup Housejoy, which last raised funding in December 2015, has reportedly laid off more than 40 employees across its departments to check mounting cost structures at a time of slow revenue growth.

Citing an industry insider, the report said that the startup has showed the exit route to employees at mid-management levels across its digital marketing, technical and back-end operations teams.

Housejoy, which last raised $23 million in Series-B lead by Amazon, in December'15, is also on verge of shutting down its categories that offer little or no unit margins such as specialized lifestyle and health services.

Additionally, according to one of Housejoy employee cited in the report, the startup is looking to turn the platform to a marketplace model and gradually reducing its exposure to operationally-intensive categories. The company would now focus mainly on fulfillment categories such as beauty and selective home services (handyman services) that enable a transaction model.

Moreover, the startup had also explored a potential sale to OLX India, Quikr and UrbanClap in the past two-three quarters, but the talks did not materialize, said the report citing a person aware of the negotiations.

Housejoy is now looking to focus on categories where it can provide service through the platform, thereby increasing scope for revenue accruals rather than just leadbased services where the cost of acquiring a customer is much higher than the revenue earned.

Industry experts peg this operational burn to have further increased in this financial year with Housejoy struggling to raise funds for last three years.

To recall, Housejoy has made its first acquisition when it bought online laundry services player , at an undisclosed amount, in February 2016.

In August 2016, Housejoy has launched the first of its kind Geo-Targeted technology in all 8 cities it operates, and at that time Housejoy website and the app also unveiled refreshingly new look with captivating content , transparency in pricing and clear information on services offered from the start to its completion and various customizations available for all its 12 categories of that time.

The online services market in India crossed $70 million in 2017 and at a compound annual growth rate of about 60%, the market is expected to grow to $300 million by 2020, according to Redseer Consulting.

In January 2017, Mumbai based home & beauty services startup Taskbob, owned by Crenovative Ideas, had to shut down its operations as the startup failed to raise fresh funds for one year.

Snapdeal To Layoff 80% of Its Employees After Calling Off Flipkart Deal

Soon after calling off the merger deal with Flipkart, Snapdeal has now made its next strategy to go through a massive resizing. The struggling online marketplace now wants to run a leaner, meaner version of the organization, and will lay off close to 80 percent of its workforce, ANI reports.

A top official told the news agency that department heads were instructed to prepare a list of people who would be asked to leave. At present, Snapdeal has about 1,200 employees. If the Gurgaon-based firm goes through with its decision, it would be left with about 200 employees only.

This would be Snapdeal’s second major layoff exercise. Last year in July, it had slashed its workforce from over 9,000 to under 2,000 [Read Here]. It was one of the biggest layoffs in the India's startup space. And earlier this year, it fired 600 more employees in a bid to cut costs; the founders as well as some top executives had to forego their salaries. “We believe that every resource of the company should be deployed for driving us towards profitable growth and with this announcement, both Rohit and I are taking a 100 percent salary cut,” Snapdeal founder & CEO, Kunal Bahl, wrote in an email to employees.

According to a senior executive who remain wants to be anonymous, the company has plan to retain around 300 odd employees in the company.

Snapdeal is technically the first Unicorpse Startup of India as the troubled start saw its valuation falling down from $6.5 billion to less than $1 billion in a year or so.

Snapdeal now has cash reserves of Rs 385 crore ($60 million) from Axis Bank to which it sold its payments unit, FreeCharge. It further looks to gain about Rs 100-120 crore from the sale of its logistics unit, Vulcan Express. There are no buyers yet. And given Snapdeal’s knack of dilly-dallying, that could take long as well.

Notably, the amount of mistakes founders of Snapdeal had made can possibly make them the 'Yahoo' of India as by rejecting the $900 million merger offer from Flipkart can cost them a more setback in terms of valuation in future.

Twitter Shutting Down The Bengaluru Engineering Centre Resulting In 20 Employees' Lay off

UPDATE: A state from Twitter India has clarified that The affected employees are less than 20 in overall numbers and they belong to the engineering center in Bangalore and this is very miniscule in percentage terms compared to the overall twitter headcount which is approx. 3500+ globally.

In 2015, Twitter acquired Bangalore, India-based ZipDial which resulted in the establishment of an engineering & development center in Bengaluru. Now, in a sudden development, Twitter has decided to shut down the Bengaluru development centre in India and as a result of this nearly 60 employees, which are part of ZipDial, will be laid off.

“Over the past 18 months, we have incorporated the technology and talent of our ZipDial acquisition across our company,” said a Twitter India spokesperson.

In last two years, Twitter’s stock price cut roughly in half — the micro-blogging platform is reportedly laying off half of its staff in Bangalore, including all of its engineers there. While Twitter declined to disclose the number of people affected few reports stated that only 20 staff will be laid off.

Twitter will however maintain offices in Bangalore, as well as Delhi and Mumbai.

STATEMENT FROM TWITTER SPOKESPERSON

Engineering is a key part of our global company and we continue to focus our programs and efforts on improving the core product experience for our users worldwide. As part of our normal business review, we have decided to stop the global engineering work at the Bangalore development center. We thank the impacted individuals for their valuable contributions and are doing as much as we can to provide them a respectful exit from our company.

Twitter remains committed to India as a strategic market for users, partners and advertisers. Today, India is one of our fastest growing markets worldwide and we continue to invest in key initiatives to further expand our audience, increase user engagement and drive revenue in this important market.

Globally, Twitter workforce consists of 3860 employees. However, the company did not reveal the total number of employees it had in India as of June 2016.

Earlier this week, a Twitter investor had also sued the company over claims that they had misled investors on key growth metrics, including user base and user engagement.

Read more at:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/54415191.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

[Top Image - tanuha2001 / Shutterstock.com]

Flipkart Shows The Door To 700-1000 Underperforming Employees

It's said in the world of startups, it is always the survival of the fittest. Whether you're a company or an employee, you work, you perform, show results, only then you get to stay; otherwise it's ta-ta, bye-bye, sayonara and you're quickly shown the door. Flipkart, one of India's most successful e-commerce startup employees are currently facing this very scenario.

According to reports doing round in the media, the Indian e-commerce giant is letting go of its underperforming employees in line with its strategy to have a leaner organisation structure and make an optimum use of its monetary resources. Apparently, the company has already asked some 700-1000 of its employees to either resign or be sent off with severance pay.

Industry experts are considering this step taken by Flipkart as a response to the recent valuation slash down that the company faced by Morgan Stanley and its continuous trouble in finding funding from investors. Prior to this, Flipkart was in the news for deferring the joining dates of its IIMs campus recruits.

Currently an organisation of 30,000 employees, Flipkart's aim is to be profitable and sustain it. In the times, when the online retail industry is experiencing a lull period and witnessing a number of shutdowns, Flipkart’s strategy to strike a balance between its growth goals and costings seems like an intelligent decision on the part of the organisation.

Recently, the company even placed a cap on the salaries of its employees and put a curb on its discount pricing. It is also striving to cutback its monthly burn rate by approximately 50 percent from about $ 80-100 million in the first half of 2016 to $40 million.

Recent times have seen a number of startups going on a layoff spree in an effort to realign their resources and focus on their core areas. One of the major layoff this year has been Grofers which let go off 10 percent of its workforce this year in June. In addition to this, Hiree decided to fire about 80% of its workforce in April and was joined by InMobi letting go off close to 100 of its employees. January also saw more than 150 CommonFloor employees getting the pink slips when the former was acquired by Quikr.

In an effort to curb the rumours and regain the confidence of its employees, Flipkart has issued a statement stating, "As a performance oriented organisation, we have a transparent evaluation process in place. Employees are assessed in a fair, simple, transparent and development oriented manner. We use our review process to differentiate performance and maintain a high bar, which is reflected in our total rewards philosophy. The top performers are rewarded highly and promoted to the next growth level. The solid performers are accordingly recognized and groomed for future roles through mentoring, coaching and on-the-job learning opportunities. At times, we have employees who do not meet the performance bar. In those situations, we work closely with employees to enable them to improve their performance. In due course, if these employees are unable to make the desired progress, they are encouraged to seek opportunities outside the company where their skills can be better utilized. This is a fairly common practice across various industries- especially in high-performing internet organizations."

This is a developing story. Keep watching this space for more updates.