After laying off thousands of employees in the US, Uber is scaling down its operations in India now. Uber is downsizing its workforce in India by letting go its 25% of employees. The company hopes to reduce expenses in a bid to have smooth sailing throughout the coronavirus pandemic.
The Uber India layoffs impact employees working across departments like client and driver support, business development, legal, policy, marketing, and finance. The move is a part of a global restructuring that Uber is going through that cost 6,700 employees of Uber their jobs already this month.
The US-based major, which professed to be the top app-based ride-hailing company in India not long ago, is compensating their affected employees with 10 to 12 weeks of salary, notwithstanding offering them medical insurance for the whole 2020.
“The effect of Covid-19 and the unusual idea of the recuperation has left Uber India with no decision yet to decrease the size of its workforce. Around 600 full time positions across driver and rider support, just as different capacities, are being affected. These decreases are a piece of recently declared worldwide employment cuts this month. Today is an unfathomably miserable day for partners leaving the Uber family and we all at the organization. We settled on the choice now so we can look to the future with certainty,” said Pradeep Parameswaran, President for Uber’s India and South Asia organizations,
“I need to apologize to leaving associates and stretch out my sincere gratitude to them for their commitments to Uber, the riders, and the driver accomplices we serve in India,” he included.
Uber’s declaration follows the move made by its arch-rival Ola, which laid off 1,400 employees, or 35% of its workforce a week ago.
The trouble started to ride-hailing companies from the day India declared a nationwide lockdown in late March that shut down all open transportation services. However, since the mid of May, the government has relaxed limitations that have empowered both Ola and Uber to resume few of their services — barring pool rides — in many parts of the country with the exception of those states/cities where the number of novel coronavirus cases is extremely high.
Like many other countries, the Coronavirus has disturbed the majority of businesses in India including food delivery, hospitality and travel. The new of companies – big or small – laying off thousands of employees has become a daily affair. Despite introducing new business lines, like groceries delivery, Food delivery startups Swiggy and Zomato have together downsized their workforce by letting go around 2,600 employees (with 2,100 at Swiggy alone) as their customers have decided to refrain from getting in contact with delivery boys or consuming foods prepared outside. Interestingly, just last year Uber sold its food delivery business in India to Zomato after failing to replicate the success of Swiggy.
The trouble is not just limited to food delivery or ride-hailing startups. Travel and hospitality firms, for example, MakeMyTrip and Oyo have likewise eliminated a few positions or furloughed a large number of their full-time employees lately as the demand for their offerings crashed due to pandemic. For small startups, the situation is even worse as reports indicate that 47% of startups have the cash runway of just a month only. The situation could be even worse as reports are openly indicating that 40% of Indian startups are doomed to die.
