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India's edtech firm Byju’s sacks 2,500 employees, company says ‘recalibrating business priorities’: Report

New DelhiEdited By: C KrishnasaiUpdated: Jun 30, 2022, 12:32 PM IST
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BYJU's has claimed it will turn profitable by March. Photograph:(Reuters)

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Byju's response: However, a spokesperson of Byju’s has refuted reports on the number of persons being sacked

India’s online education provider Byju’s has laid off 2,500 employees across its group companies as the most valuable unicorn looks to mitigate the effects of slowing demand after two years of hypergrowth, according to Indian media reports. The Byju Raveendran-led edtech platform has laid off full-time and contractual employees from Toppr, WhiteHat Jr, and its core team across sales and marketing, operations, content and design teams, Moneycontrol reported quoting sources.  About 1,200 employees from Toppr alone were sacked, including 300-350 permanent employees., while another 300 employees were reportedly told to tender their resignations, or were told that they will not get salaries for about 1-1.5 months.

Moreover, about 600 contractual employees were laid off, whose tenures were scheduled to end around October or November, this year, according to reports.

The main reason being attributed to the mass layoffs are “cost-cutting and redundancy in roles”.

However, a spokesperson of Byju’s refuted Moneycontrol's reports on the number of persons being sacked, saying, “We strongly deny the misinformation presented by Moneycontrol. To recalibrate our business priorities and accelerate our long-term growth, we are optimizing our teams from our group companies. This entire exercise involves less than 500 employees from across Byju's Group companies.”

This comes days after a Bloomberg report showed that Byju's was delaying payments for an approximately $1 billion acquisition deal finalised last year, citing sources familiar with the development.

PTI reported that edtech major Byju's group firm Toppr has laid off 1,100 staff or about 36 per cent of its workforce from the company earlier this week, according to some of the employees who have been hit by the decision.

Toppr's sacked employees said that they got a call from the company on Monday and were asked to resign, failing which they will be terminated without any notice period.

(With inputs from agencies)

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