Livspace lays off 15% of its workforce to conserve capital

Online home decor startup Livspace has laid off 15% of its workforce or around 450 employees as the company’s business has been hampered by the ongoing COVID-19 lockdown.

Livspace’s experience centers and last-mile operations were severely impacted due to the restrictions imposed forcing the company to announce layoffs, said an ET report. 

However, the impacted employees will receive one month’s salary along with extra pay of one-four weeks for those who have been part of the startup for more than three years, proportional to the duration of their services, the report added.

In addition, Livspace has also announced to provide health coverage for the next three months to the impacted employees during this health crisis and has also set up an outplacement cell for them.

The company’s founders- Anuj Srivastava and Ramakant Sharma - had also let go off their annual salaries with the leadership team writing off their yearly bonuses in April this year. 

Given the COVID-19 outbreak, all businesses and startups are desperately gasping for air. Layoffs and pay cuts have become the new normal and they are resorting to trimming their staff in a bid to go lean and conserve cash.

With this, Livspace has joined the list of more than a dozen companies who have either fired or furloughed employees, or slashed their salaries in the past two months. The list includes Zomato, Swiggy, Paytm, FabHotels, Shadowfax, and Uber among others.

Back in January, Livspace had raised $60 million in funding. The company’s direct competitor HomeLane also has been facing a sharp fall in revenue due to the ongoing pandemic. Sequoia Capital-backed HomeLane announced a pay cut of up to 50% for all and will consider increments for only 70% of the workforce.