BYJU's Allegedly Closes Down Kerala Office, Compels 170 Employees To Resign

Edtech unicorn Byju's has reportedly shut its office in Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram city, rendering 170 employees jobless. 

These staffers met V Sivankutty, the state's minister of General Education and Labour, seeking compensation for this move and asked the minister's assistance in releasing their pending salaries from the company, Mint reported. 

Minister Sivankutty posted about meeting Byju's employees on his Facebook page, adding that the Labour Department would inspect this matter. 

"At technopark, Thiruvananthapuram Employees of Baiju's app came and met me with the office bearers of IT employees welfare organisation Echo of Technopark. Employees have many complaints including job losses, (sic)" Sivankutty said.  

As per multiple sources, these employees are demanding salaries for October 2022. They sought a one-time settlement for the upcoming three months, from November 2022 to January 2023, and have also requested earned leave encashment and the settlement of their variable pay, which applies to each employee. 

After furnishing its audited FY2020-21 financials in September, the edtech unicorn announced that it would "rationalise" about 5 per cent of its 50,000-strong workforce in a phased manner. This meant it would lay off around 2,500 staffers across product, content, media and technology departments.

Byju's has been in the news for the past few months handing out pink slips. In June 2022, its subsidiaries WhiteHat Jr fired 300 employees, while Toppr also terminated 300 jobs in June to accelerate growth. 

Byju's joins a long line of edtech companies laying people off since the past year. According to data compiled by The Hindu Business Line, Indian edtech start-ups account for 40 per cent of employees laid off until September 15, 2022.      

Unacademy's PrepLadder team laid off nearly 150 employees (2.6 per cent of its workforce) this June, which came close to firing about 600 employees, contractual workers and educators in April 2022. 

This July, Bengaluru edtech unicorn Vedantu laid off 100 full-time employees from its sales as a part of a restructuring exercise. This was its third round of layoffs after it fired around 624 full-time and contractual employees in two batches in May.