#Coronavirus: Swiggy Will Fire 900 Employees, Shut Down 50% Of Cloud Kitchens As Orders Vanish

With the fall in the economy due to the lockdown, huge masses of people are being laid off across various industries. Next to join the line is the online food delivery startup, Swiggy.

The company is expected to fire a whopping 800 or 900 employees by the next month as a part of its cost-cutting plan. 

At the beginning of the month, food delivery businesses, including Zomato and Swiggy have lost a lot of business due to the lockdown. 

Many of the IT firms have also been laying off people, blaming it on the decline in the economy during the lockdown that has been imposed due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic.

Why is Swiggy firing employees? Find out all the details right here!

Swiggy To Fire 800-900 Employees; Shut Down Cloud Kitchens

As per two sources close to the development, Swiggy is planning to lay off as much as 800 to 900 employees as a part of their cost cutting plans. 

There was news previously about online food delivery orders for Zomato and Swiggy dropping by 70% in the last 10 days to under 1 million a day from  2.5 million deliveries a day.

Sources revealed, “The employees that are expected to be asked to leave are going to be across teams in their cloud kitchen division.”

Swiggy is now the second unicorn to go for mass layoffs, Paytm being another. Paytm has laid off about 700 employees recently too. Multiple other startups, such as Acko Insurance, Meesho, Travel Triangle, Shop101 have also laid off files and slashed the salaries of the senior and mid-level employees.

Closing Cloud Kitchens To Impact Kitchen Staff Working There

In addition to that, the online food delivery startup will also be closing down half of its cloud kitchens while also renegotiating rents for many of them. Whichever ones have low occupancy are being shut down, the alternative being renegotiation of rents. 

A Swiggy spokesperson said that as the lockdown is being extended, the company is evaluating other means to stay focused on the growth and the profitability across the kitchens.

He said, “These include renegotiating contracts with landlords, relocation of certain kitchens to more optimal locations and discontinuing operations at a few kitchens that have been severely impacted since the lockdown came into effect.”

He also added that this will greatly affect the kitchen staff that is working in the kitchens.