Debasis Mohapatra
Bengaluru, 31 May
Indian startup ecosystem is yet to see any signs of hiring improvement though the pace of mass layoffs has slowed down in past quarters.
According to HR experts, contractual hiring in large startups has witnessed a marginal uptick but overall hiring activity is yet to see any recovery.
“Startups are currently hiring on a contractual basis but numbers are nowhere they used to be. Contractual hiring by the GCCs (Global Capability Centres) is going on. But these two are not able to drive the hiring numbers significantly,” Supaul Chanda, an HR expert with decades of experience in the staffing space told the Data Biz Times. He said that it’s a wait-and-watch for the staffing industry whether things are going to improve in the second half of this year.
After several rounds of mass layoffs last year, the startup ecosystem in India has not seen many such rounds of firing so far. However, some startups also reduced their employee base as they continued to struggle with funding crunch.
In 2024 so far, Bhavish Aggarwal-led ride-hailing major Ola Cabs has laid off around 10% of its workforce, or about 200 employees, in a restructuring exercise. Similarly,
Amid funding challenges and legal battles, edtech firm Byju’s has fired 500 employees, including teachers. Currently, the company has nearly 13,000 employees. “We are in the final stages of a business restructuring exercise announced in October 2023 to simplify operating structures, reduce the cost base, and better cash flow management,” the company has said.
Food delivery giant Swiggy is likely to lay off 400 employees, or around 6% of its total workforce, as part of a corporate realignment process. The layoffs could impact employees across departments, but the customer support and tech teams took the hardest hit,
Similarly, foodtech startup Swiggy Swiggy reportedly plans to trim its workforce by around 400 employees, constituting around 6% of its total staff.
In 2023, the pace of layoffs was much higher as startups rushed to cut operational cost owing to funding winter. According to reports, more than 28,000 employees lost their jobs last year with most layoffs happening in edtech, gaming and even well-funded ecommerce companies.
HR experts are of the opinion that chances of mass layoffs are less in the current year as most companies have already trimmed their workforce to save costs.
