The global slowdown in the tech industry, resulting in layoffs globally, seems to be hitting Indian shores. Food aggregator Zomato became the first Indian startup to confirm a “performance-based churn”, which will see the workforce reduced by 3% across departments.
A company spokesperson confirmed in a report that there has been “a regular performance-based churn of under 3% of our workforce; there’s nothing more to it”
The internally-announced layoffs at the publicly listed startup coincide with the recent trend of mass dismissals in tech and social media giants globally. Recently, Twitter’s new management headed by Elon Musk reduced the workforce by 50%, and later Meta, formerly Facebook, announced it will let go of 11,000 employees or 13% of its global workforce.
Founder & CEO Deepinder Goyal-led company currently employs 3800 employees. In May 2020, the company fired 520 employees, comprising 13% of the workforce following the Covid-19 lockdown-induced slump in business.
The development comes closely after three top-level exits from the company, including that of co-founder Mohit Gupta, new initiatives head Rahul Ganjoo, and intercity head Siddharth Jhewar in the last three weeks.
In a parting note, Gupta wrote: “I remain a long only investor in Zomato. Four and a half years ago I joined Deepi (Deepinder Goyal) & this band of crazies trying to build the best food tech company in the country, I dare say the world. In this period, we brought our food delivery business back from the brink, survived crazy competition, the pandemic, and became a large and profitable business (as unlikely as it seemed at the beginning). The journey to build a world class tech business out of India, for India (and then maybe the world) is still on, just 1% done.”
Responding to Gupta, CEO Goyal wrote: “You have done a tremendous job here, brought us back from the brink of extinction, scaled the business to new heights, got us to profitability, and above all, coached me over the years to become capable of running such a large and complex business. Thanks to you, I feel confident that I can continue to build on top of your legacy and build a bigger and better company going forward”.
Indian I-T behemoths, which are largely dependent on developed markets for business, though largely insulated from the slump in the tech sector, have already slowed down new hiring amid fears of a recession in the Western world and rising rates globally.
