Exclusive: FabHotels lays off up to 80 employees, slashes salary across levels

As we have been reporting in the past week, travel and hospitality sectors have taken a hard knock due to the COVID-19  pandemic and many Indian startups in the segment are laying off staff. 

After GO-MMT, TravelTriangle and few other OTAs, budget hotel chain FabHotels has laid off about 80 employees and slashed salaries of the entire workforce, said three sources aware of the development requesting anonymity.

“About 50 people from operations were asked to leave while 30 employees lost their jobs from sales and supply acquisitions with one-month severance,” said a source who wished not to be named. “The entire team of about 400 employees including co-founders have taken a pay cut in the range of 15-20%.”

Entrackr has verified the salary cuts across all levels through an email sent by FabHotel’s CEO Vaibhav Aggarwal to the team. The email mentions that employees under Rs 25,000 monthly salary will take a 15% pay cut. People with Rs 25,000 plus monthly salary will have to bear 20% while co-founders’ monthly compensation will be slashed by 25%.

Sources emphasised that the laid-off employees were terminated on March 30. We also verified this via another email sent by the company to its employees. “If the pandemic doesn’t subside by early May, then FabHotels would go for another round of layoffs,” added the above-quoted source.

Queries sent to Aggarwal didn’t elicit any immediate response. We will update the post as and when he does.

Over the past week, a clutch of startups majorly in travel and hospitality segments have slashed workforce and salaries. MakeMyTrip has slashed salaries of up to 50 senior employees while Ixigo has also cut compensation across all levels.

Digital insurance company Acko has laid off about 50 employees and slashed salaries across their senior level. Entrackr had exclusively reported it on Wednesday. Many startup founders including Aloke Bajpai of Ixigo, Deep Kalra of MakeMyTrip and Varun Dua of Acko have foregone their salaries.

The Indian startup ecosystem is also witnessing layoffs in cases where the companies are left with no choice. Besides these firms, there are many companies who are consulting with their respective investors to stretch their runway and figure out the path ahead.