There were reports recently on Ola’s plan on the layoff across different software verticals of ANI technologies
Ride-hailing platform Ola has decided to not lay off the 200 engineers it was earlier planning to let go, according to an ET report. There were reports recently on Ola’s plan on the layoff across different software verticals of ANI technologies. It came on the heels of declining sales of Ola Electric scooters.
The report said employees have been informed about the change in the plan at a townhall meeting attended by the company’s senior tech leaders. Newspaper Deccan Herald first reported the company’s latest decision.
In July also, there were reports that though Ola was hiring for its electric mobility business, the urban mobility firm was also in the process of laying off about 1,000 employees. The restructuring exercise, expected to be on for a few weeks more, is to focus more on its electric mobility business, where it is hiring “aggressively”.
The restructuring process at Ola has been ongoing across verticals including mobility, hyperlocal, fintech, and its used cars businesses.
The company has also said, “Ola Electric, India’s largest EV company, has been increasing its focus on non-software engineering domains with a clear focus on building engineering and R&D capabilities across – vehicle, cell, battery, manufacturing and automation, autonomous engineering streams. The company currently has around 2,000 engineers and aims to increase its engineering talent pool to 5,000 over the next 18 months. In light of these efforts, the company is centralizing operations and is undertaking a restructuring exercise to minimise redundancy and build a strong lateral structure that strengthens relevant roles and functions.”
Due to financial stress, start-ups in India have been resorting to lay-offs to cut costs. In July, edtech unicorn start-up Byju’s laid off over 600 employees, including both permanent and contractual.
Before Byju’s, new-generation enterprises including Vedantu, Unacademy and Cars24 have also let go of over 5,000 employees in India this year. Ola has laid off about 2,100 employees during January-March this year, followed by Unacademy (over 600), Cars24 (600) and Vedantu (400). This apart, e-commerce firm Meesho has laid off 150 employees, furniture rental start-up Furlenco 200, influencer-led social commerce start-up Trell 300 employees and OkCredit has let go of 40 employees.
