Byju's fires 900 more employees in latest round of layoffs

Edtech startup Byju's has fired over 900 employees in fresh layoffs, three sources aware of the development confirmed to CNBC-TV18.com.

“We had been told to keep a list of employees ranked as per performance ready last week and since Feb 1st the company started notifying people about the layoff,” said an employee in a managerial position in content at Byjus.

Sources further added that the layoffs are happening in engineering, content, logistics and even in the international business of the company.

Further, a report by Moneycontrol mentioned that about 300 employees have been sacked from the engineering team, while the logistics team’s strength has come down to 50 percent since October. In fact, Byju’s has been outsourcing logistics, so the company has halved its in-house logistics team.

Sources also confirmed to CNBC-TV18.com that the layoffs are being done by managers and the HR department via Whatsapp messages and meetings rather than official mails. Additionally, Moneycontrol, quoting sources, reported that the company is also forcing employees to resign as layoffs don’t look good on the portfolio.

CNBC-TV18.com reached out to Byju's but the company declined to comment.

The most recent round of layoffs coincides with Byju's ongoing efforts to aggressively reduce expenses after reporting a net loss of Rs 4,589 crore in FY21 (2020-21), the highest for an Indian startup that year.

Over 2,500 employees, or about 5 percent of the company's staff across departments, were let go in October of last year in an effort to cut "redundancies" and achieve profitability for the current fiscal year FY23 (2022-23).