MakeMyTrip lays off 350 employees to conserve capital

Online travel firm MakeMyTrip has laid off 350 employees as the company’s business is facing a huge downturn due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. 

MakeMyTrip’s Group Executive Chairman Deep Kalra informed the impacted employees about the layoff decision in an email sent on Friday. Entrackr has seen a copy of the email.

“Over the past two months, we have analyzed impact closely and have spent considerable time thinking about a path to business recovery. As a result, it becomes agonizingly clear that there are certain lines of business (LOBs) that are far deeply affected and will take much longer than the others to recover as we revisited some of our strategic imperatives to be able to sustain our business in the long term. Keeping this in mind we have had to take this sad but inevitable decision of rightsizing our workforce,” the email said. 

The Gurugram-based company would provide mediclaim coverage for the impacted employees and their families till the end of this year, leave encashment, gratuity, and retain the right to exercise part of the restricted stock unit (RSUs) as applicable.

On the lines of other companies who laid off staff, MakeMyTrip has allowed employees to retain the company’s laptops and will be given outplacement support from salary payments as per their notice period. 

In March, the company’s top executives Kalra and Rajesh Magow had opted to draw ‘zero salary’ from April 2020 and its leadership team had also opted for a 50% voluntary pay cut. 

Salary cuts were also announced across all its group companies - MakeMyTrip, Goibibo, and redBus - in the same month to sustain their business for the long term. 

The travel and hospitality sectors have been hit the most due to the nationwide lockdown during which no domestic and international flights were allowed to operate for at least two months. 

Besides MakeMyTrip, several other firms in the travel and hospitality sector have also either implemented salary cuts or have gone for layoffs to cope with the ongoing situations. TravelTriangle had let go of 50% of its workforce or around 300 of its employees in March. 

In April, some employees of Oyo in India had opted for voluntary leave with limited benefits that were applicable from May 4. The company has denied any plans for job cuts in the country. Another budget hotel chain FabHotels too had laid off about 80 employees and slashed salaries of the entire workforce in April, followed by Treebo which let go of around 100-200 employees.

Entrackr had exclusively reported about the layoffs and salary cuts at TravelTriangle and FabHotels.