#Coronavirus: MakeMyTrip Can Fire 400 Employees; IT Firms Cancel 50% Hiring, Layoffs Coming Up

Coronavirus will have some far-reaching consequences: Besides killing human beings, this deadly virus can unleash an unprecedented economic recession.

And travel industry, startups, IT firms seem to be the first casualty.

India’s biggest travel portal: MakeMyTrip has said that around 400 employees can be fired, even as deep salary cuts will be announced soon. MakeMyTrip founders have already announced that they will draw zero salary.

Meanwhile recruitment firms have announced that hiring across verticals have dropped by 50%, as interviews are being canceled. 

They have predicted that massive layoffs can come very soon.

MakeMyTrip, GoIbibo, Redbus Will Fire 400 Employees

MakeMyTrip and their associated companies: GoIbibo and Redbus can fire 60% of their contractual employees. 

There are 650 such contractual employees in these three companies.

Majority of them are working in customer service and backend support.

An unnamed insider said to Entrackr: “MakeMyTrip has about 650 people employed for backend and support services. It has plans to fire 60 per cent of its total headcounts in these departments,”

There has been no official confirmation on this news report.

MakeMyTrip co-founders Deep Kalra and Rajesh Magow had earlier informed that they will now draw zero salary, as deep salary cuts for managers across MakeMyTrip, GoIbibo and Redbus are being planned.

These three companies have more than 3000 employees in India. 

Since air travel and train, buses are all shutdown due to the coronavirus outbreak, the future of travel industry looks very bleak.

Startups, IT Firms Cancel 50% Of Recruitments

Meanwhile recruitment agencies are informing that startups in india have cancelled upto 50% of all hiring, and interviews.

Kamal Karanth, co-founder of Xpheno, a staffing agency said, “Almost 50% of ongoing interviews, new requirements, onboardings have stopped for the last two weeks now, particularly in the IT sector,” 

Shweta Harikrishnan, HR director of HackerEarth said, “We have already started seeing startups and SMBs withdraw their offers and put on hold fresh candidate hiring,”

Although bigger IT firms haven’t yet announced any change of their hiring plans, but smaller and mid-size IT firms have already stopped majority of interviews and hiring activities.

Rituparna Chakraborty, co-founder of staffing services provider Teamlease said, “Had there been no impact of the virus outbreak, we would have seen a clear upswing in fresh jobs in the market,” 

Ashutosh Dabral, co-founder and CEO of Hush, a community for employees said that a week back, startups and IT firms were seeking advice on how to implement work from home. 

Now, these companies are talking about layoffs.

We will keep you updated, as more details come in. 

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