Zomato has revealed that it has had to let go of 541 employees across customer, merchant and delivery partner support teams because of ¡°growing business and improvement in services cut down on the need to service order-related queries¡±.
FILE PHOTO BCCL
In a statement, quoted by Financial Express, the Gurgaon-based food delivery firm said that only about 7.5 per cent of its orders (food) require support. This is a significant decline from about 15 per cent in March earlier this year.
The 541 people who have reportedly lost their jobs form about 10 per cent of Zomato¡¯s total employee strength across the support teams.?
A spokesperson was further quoted as saying in The Financial Express that ¡°we have dramatically improved the speed of service resolution¡±.
The development comes amidst rising job losses in the country. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had recently warned: ¡°The Modi government¡¯s policies are resulting in massive job-less growth. More than 3.5 lakh jobs have been lost in the automobile sector alone. There will similarly be large scale job losses in the informal sector, hurting our most vulnerable workers".?
A worker adjusts the windscreen wipers of a parked car at a Maruti Suzuki stockyard on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. Reuters Photo
The layoffs have been most crucial in the auto sector. Textile industry has also shown signs of massive slow down and job cuts, apart from the real-estate sector where informal labourers and daily-wage workers are reportedly facing a tough time.?
Zomato informed IndiaTimes that they have seen significant evolution and improvement in their technology products and platforms over the last few months.?
"Unfortunately, the culmination of these factors has also led to certain redundancies across our customer, merchant and delivery partner support teams. Today, we let go of 541 people across these support teams. While this has been a painful decision, to make the transition smoother we have extended between 2-4 months severance pay (based on tenure), family health insurance cover (till the end of Jan 2020) and career fair opportunities with companies that specialise in the concerned functions, starting Monday," Zomato said.
But clear signs of economic slowdown are visible in the country and the impact on jobs is likely to become worse in the coming weeks.??
The layoffs continue in the auto sector as car makers?including Honda Motor, Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra have implemented brief suspensions to production in recent weeks in the face of slow demand. The auto sector, which contributes more than 7 per cent to the country's GDP, is facing arguably its worst downturn and the livelihoods of lakhs of people hang in the balance.