Ola lays off 1,400 employees as its revenue declines by 95%

Ola has announced to fire 1,400 employees as the company has been going through a tough time due to the covid19 lockdown. According to the company, loss of revenue had made it to lay off people. The company has been facing over 90% of business losses in the past two months.

Bhavish Aggarwal, co-founder, and CEO wrote an email to employees to inform them about job cuts. “In these circumstances, today I write to all of you with the toughest decision I have ever taken – the need to downsize our organization and let go of 1400 of our valued employees,” mentioned his email.

The development comes soon after its arch-rival Uber also let go of up to 700 employees in India and thousands across the world. Companies in travel, hospitality, and mobility space have been knocked off severely.

With this Ola has laid off about 30-35% of its total 6,000 workforces. The company had fired over 500 employees in December last year.

“Ever since my last email to you 6 weeks ago, I had hoped to write again soon in better times. Unfortunately, the COVID crisis continues to unfold all around us causing unprecedented economic and social destruction,” added Aggarwal’s email.

To compensate the impacted employees, Ola will provide a payout of 3 months of their fixed salary, irrespective of the notice period. Beyond this, those employees who have spent significantly more time with the company will be eligible for higher payouts depending on tenure.

Moreover, all eligible ESOPs will vest forward to the closest quarter. For those who may not have completed a year, the ride-hailing firm will enable pro-rated vesting for the period of time spent with us.

Recently, Swiggy and Zomato have provided similar relief to those employees who are being laid off. On the lines of these unicorns, Ola will also extend medical, life, and accident insurance cover for its staff and their families up to 31st Dec 2020 or the start of their next job whichever is earlier. The company will allow its employees to retain their Ola-issued laptops as well.

For driver-partners across the country, Ola will provide lease rental waivers for over 30,000 leasing drivers giving them relief of up to Rs. 25,000 a month.

Aggarwal has also assured that this layoff will be a one time exercise and will be complete by the end of this week for our India Mobility business and by the end of next week for Ola foods and Ola Financial Services. According to him, there will be no COVID related pay cut and firing.