Vishal Garg-Run Better.Com Lays Off 3,000 Employees In US, India

Indian-American CEO Vishal Garg-run digital mortgage firm reportedly planned the layoffs for March 8, however, shifted the date to March 9 when news of the initial date was leaked in the media

In December 2021, Vishal Garg laid off nearly 900 employees even after his company had announced it received a cash infusion of $750 million from Aurora Acquisition Corp and SoftBank. Image: LinkedIn

New Delhi: Better.com, an online mortgage lender, on Wednesday started laying off thousands of employees in the US and India who received severance cheques in the payroll app.

According to a report by IANS, the layoffs were meant to be announced by the company on Wednesday. However, one employee told TechCrunch that “they accidentally rolled out the severance payslips too early.”

Indian-American CEO Vishal Garg-run digital mortgage firm reportedly planned the layoffs for March 8, however, shifted the date to March 9 when news of the initial date was leaked in the media.

According to news report, the company apparently forgot to change the date on its accompanying Workday app, the company’s payroll app, and employees reportedly saw severance cheques appearing in the app at 12 am on March 8 (US time).

The mass layoffs have started, according to employees and other sources at the company, and the affected workers are finding out by seeing a severance cheque in their Workday account.

According to the employee, the severance cheques arrived without any additional communication from the company. About 3,000 of the company’s 8,000 employees in the US and India are being asked to go. The earlier figure reported was about 4,000 but it is now “just over 3,000”, according to a company spokesperson. The severance package is reportedly 60 to 80 days’ pay.

Kevin Ryan, chief financial officer (CFO), sent an email to the company, saying they “had to adjust to volatility in the interest rate environment and refinancing market.”

“Unfortunately, that means we must take the difficult step of streamlining our operations further and reducing our workforce in both the US and India in a substantial way,” he added.

In December 2021, Garg laid off nearly 900 employees even after his company had announced it received a cash infusion of $750 million from Aurora Acquisition Corp and SoftBank.

At the time of the early December layoffs, Better.com had about 9,100 employees. A couple of days after that Zoom meeting, senior communications and public relations executives stepped down. Several senior executives have quit nearly three months after Garg laid off employees via a Zoom meeting call.

Garg, who later issued an apology for the embarrassing act that made headlines globally and hundreds of memes on social media platforms, remains at the helm of the firm after taking a month-long ‘break’.