Ola To Lay Off 1,400 Employees As Revenue Declines Amid Covid-19 Crisis

The cab aggregator Ola cabs is planning to lay off over 1400 employees as Covid-19 lockdown hits the company's revenue.

Cab operator Uber on Monday temporarily suspended all ride services in the city amid lockdown in the view of novel coronavirus while Ola Cabs has curtailed its services.

New Delhi: Ride hailing start-up Ola will be laying off 1400 people from their workforce as continued lockdown hits business. Staff from various operations like rides, financial services, and food businesses are going to be laid off as revenues declined by 95 percent in the last two months due to coronavirus pandemic, a note by CEO Bhavish Aggarwal said. The prolonged nationwide lockdown has affected the Indian economy drastically, now even with the fourth phase of lockdown, many restrictions still remain. While cab services are allowed to resume (with certain guidelines), Day 1 did not see a lot of bookings according to new reports. According to the PTI report, in an email to employees, Aggarwal made it clear that the prognosis ahead for the business is "very unclear and uncertain" and the impact of this crisis is "definitely going to be long-drawn for us". "The fallout of the virus has been very tough for our industry in particular. Our revenue has come down 95 percent over the past 2 months. Most importantly, this crisis has affected the livelihoods of millions of our drivers and their families across India and our international geographies," he said. Many businesses are affected by the lockdown, some have had to downsize, many had to take pay cuts as close to 50%. Food delivery company Swiggy on Monday announced that it will lay off 1,100 employees, or nearly 14% of its total workforce, as in the past two months food orders dipped considerably. Two days before rival food delivery startup Zomato laid off 13% of its workforce and said it would implement salary cuts of up to 50% across the organisation for at least six months.