The Indian ridesharing company Ola Cabs fired nearly 200 employees across its different teams in a restructuring exercise. Various reports have cited that the latest round of layoffs conducted by the ride hailing major comes at a time when IT giant and organizations globally are participating in a firing spree which is anticipated to carry on to after the ongoing winter cycle too.
As per reports, the employees laid from Ola belong to the Ola Cabs, the electric two-wheeler manufacturer Ola Electric and Ola Financial Services.
A company employee commented on the fresh downsizing round conducted, saying, “About 200 people have been terminated this week. I was in the tech team, I’m looking for other opportunities now.”
According to an Ola spokesperson, “We regularly conduct restructuring exercises to improve efficiencies, and there are roles which are now redundant. We will continue making new hires in engineering and design including senior talent in our key priority areas”. The person said this to Inc42.
Since September last year, the Bengaluru-based cab company had been considering cutting its employee pool by 200 people to reduce ‘redundancies’, sources said.
The company has also offered severance packages to the almost 200 employees fired, along with handing them over their notice periods after the layoffs began in the week started on Jan 9, 2023.
Ola had earlier said it was still looking to nearly double its engineering talent pool to 5,000 over the coming 12 months or so. The cost reduction exercise comes at a time when Ola Electric sold a record 25,000 scooters in December which pushed its market share to above 30%, a Financial Express report said.
The company had called its ride-hailing business ‘very profitable’ and expects its electric scooter business to turn profitable too in the coming quarters but did not provide any figures supporting the claim.
