India accounts for about 10% of Uber global employees layoffs

A fortnight after Uber restructured its corporate holdings in India, the US-based ride-hailing is laying off a significant chunk of its employees.

As a part of its global cost-cutting drive, the company is cutting jobs of 350 employes, out of this less than 10% belong to the company's Indian workforce.

In an e-mail letter to employees, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi outlined the layouts are part of a restructuring that’s aiming to ensure the right people are in the right roles.

While there is no clarity on which department of the company would take the hit in India, sources aware about the development said that Uber's online food delivery vertical UberEats would be one among many to be impacted by the decision.

The company may soon make an announcement regarding this. Entrackr queries to Uber did not elicit a response till the publication of this report

One of the reasons for layoff has been Indian businesses not contributing as much as expected by the company. Uber, which has close to 2600 employees in the country, add only 2% in its global revenue and heavily bogged down by its business expenses.

As per ET report, Uber's policy team has been shrinking as the company is outsourcing most of its work.

This is the third instance of job cuts by the ride-hailing firm since its IPO.

In July, the company had laid off about 400 employees globally, where 5% of employees largely from the company's central marketing team in India got affected. After that, the company also laid off employees in September, though the Indian workforce largely remained untouched by this.

That apart, it has also been facing detail investigations in its business operations to substantiate allegations of anti-competitive behaviour and predatory pricing.

In early Oct, the ride-hailing firm had brought its India business including food delivery and ride-hailing services under Uber India Systems from earlier Netherland-registered Uber BV.

Soon India chief Bhavik Rathod and head of central operations Deepak Reddy left the company. Uber attempts to sell its loss-making food delivery business UberEats has also been unsuccessful.

It held talks with Amazon and Swiggy, but talks never went beyond initial round overvaluation. As per an estimate, UberEats is said to lose over millions of dollar a month.

Correction: The article and the headline have been updated and corrected after Uber response. The number of employees in Uber India is corrected to 2600 from 400 and lay off in India is confirmed to be under 10%, not 15%, as reported in the earlier version. We regret the error.