Byju’s To Layoff 1,000 More Employees Amid Tension With Lenders

Byju’s, the Indian ed-tech startup, has started its second round of layoffs, sacking employees from various departments. The layoffs come when the tech startup faces tension with lenders of its $1.2 billion term loan.

According to a report by Moneycontrol, the HR team at the Byju’s held individual discussions with employees and in-person meetings to communicate about their job cuts. Some staff members were told about the layoffs beginning on 14 June. After the discussions, employees were given the option to resign voluntarily on the official HR portal. The email accounts were deactivated and they asked to submit their official identity cards, as per the report.

The number of layoffs would be more than 1,000 and will mostly impact senior employees, who have spent more than two years at the company. The edtech major plans to pay two months’ salary for June and July to all affected employees.

A full and final settlement will be made by September-October, almost 45 days after July. However, no additional severance will be given after this.

Despite implementing cost-cutting strategies and sacking more than 2,500 employees, Byju’s failed to become profitable by the end of fiscal 2022-23.

Earlier this month, Byju’s announced 1,000 job cuts, which largely affected contractual workers and on-ground staff sourced from third-party staffers.

In October this year, the edtech said it would look at rationalising costs and laid-off 2,500 employees.

Currently, the company employs around 40,000 people.

The layoffs come at a time when Byju’s defaulted on $40 million in interest on a loan. It is in discussions with lenders and has filed a case against one of them.