Ola said today that it is laying off 1400 employees, nearly 25% of its total workforce. The news comes after the company saw its revenue come down by nearly 95% over the last two months because of the nationwide COVID lockdown.
Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal today informed the employees in a mail saying,
the company doesn’t see the situation improving anytime soon, given that now most of the offices have imposed work from home and travel will also come down.
The company has decided to give a minimum financial payout of three months of the fixed salary for the affected employees irrespective of the notice period.
“The fallout of the virus has been very tough for our industry in particular. Our revenue has come down 95 per cent over the past 2 months. Most importantly, this crisis has affected the livelihoods of millions of our drivers and their families across India and our international geographies,” Bhavish wrote in his mail.
“Unfortunately, the COVID crisis continues to unfold all around us, causing unprecedented economic and social destruction… The world is not going to revert to the pre-COVID era anytime soon,” he added to the mail.
Aggarwal also said that this is an on-time exercise and there will be no more COVID-related cuts will be done after this. The layoffs will be completed by the end of this week for the India Mobility business, and by the end of next week for Ola foods and Ola Financial Services.