Ola is to cut 1,400 jobs in India due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. That’s 35% of its workforce in its home market. The details were sent in an email to Ola’s employees by its CEO, Bhavish Aggarwal. He also revealed that the ride-hailing giant’s revenue fell 95% over the past two months.
In the email, Aggarwal writes: ‘This downsizing exercise has been a very tough and sad decision for the entire management team to make. I have personally spent significant time, reviewing and revisiting every single aspect of this exercise as each one of the impacted individuals has played an important role in building Ola and are the most talented and passionate people I have come across. These decisions are not reflective of anyone’s performance and are purely a function of the uncontrollable circumstances that we have been faced with’.
He added: ‘This pandemic has only highlighted the need for each of us to have safe and reliable mobility solutions. As economic activity returns, so will the need for mobility, but the paradigms will have changed. This crisis is accelerating macro trends of digital commerce and clean mobility, and our businesses are well-positioned to leverage these macro trends well’.
He writes that every affected employee will receive a minimum financial payout of 3 months of their fixed salary, irrespective of the notice period.
