Ola Lays Off 200 Employees Across Verticals In Restructuring Exercise: Report

Updated on: 13 January 2023 4:48 pm

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Ola has laid off around 200 employees from its tech and product teams as part of a restructuring exercise, with engineering roles being impacted the most.

The laid-off employees are from Ola Cabs, Ola Electric, and Ola Financial Services verticals, Inc42 reported.

The company has reportedly offered severance packages as per employees' notice period. The layoffs began earlier this week.

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“We regularly conduct restructuring exercises to improve efficiencies, and there are roles that are now redundant. We will continue making new hires in engineering and design including senior talent in our key priority areas,” said an Ola spokesperson in the media statement.

Last year, the car rental company announced its plans to terminate 200 engineering roles. The latest spate of layoffs is said to be the same that was supposed to take place last year.

The development has come days after Ola announced the shutdown of its recently acquired Avail Finance App and integrate it with Ola Money.

Founded in 2010 by Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati, Ola, initially started as a cab aggregator but now is making an entry into the premium electric vehicle (EV) cab service category by planning to put about 10,000 cars on the roads.

"The new premium fleet of Ola will be operated by top-rated drivers and provide 100 per cent ride assurance post allocation of the cab, zero cancellations, and 100 per cent cashless payments," said Ola in a media statement.

In the financial year (FY) 2021, the company reported a 65 per cent decline in revenue at Rs 689.61 crore. It reported its first operating profit (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation or EBITDA) at Rs 89.82 crore on a standalone basis. It had registered a loss of Rs 610.18 crore in the previous financial year, Business Today reported.

Ola has reportedly been in a cost-cutting spree since last year. The start-up, which is chasing profitability, has not only laid off employees but has also shut down its various verticals such as infotainment service Ola Play, used-cars platform Ola Cars, and quick-commerce vertical Ola Dash.