BYJU’S Undertakes Another Round Of Layoffs Amid Debt Crisis

SUMMARY

Over 1,000 employees are likely to lose their jobs in the latest layoff round, which would largely impact ‘senior people’ who have worked with the company for more than two years

The layoffs will impact employees across departments such as mentoring, logistics, training, sales, post-sales, and finance

The development comes at a time when BYJU’S is involved in a standoff with its lenders over a loan of $1.2 Bn

Amid the ongoing standoff with its lenders, BYJU’S has reportedly set in motion the process for another round of layoffs, which would impact more than 1,000 employees.

Citing a source, Moneycontrol reported that over 1,000 employees are likely to lose their jobs in the latest layoff round, which would largely impact ‘senior people’ who have worked with the company for more than two years.

Employees working across departments such as mentoring, logistics, training, sales, post-sales, and finance are likely to lose their jobs.

The edtech decacorn’s human resource team conducted discussions with impacted employees over phone calls and during in-person meetings on June 16. The HR personnel are said to have told the impacted employees to resign voluntarily through the company’s HR portal.

The email IDs of the affected employees were also deactivated and they were asked to hand over their identity cards. Many aggrieved employees also claimed that there was no prior communication and they were informed suddenly that June 16 would be their last working day.

A BYJU’S spokesperson declined to comment on Inc42’s queries on the latest round of layoffs.

Citing employees, the report said that the edtech giant is yet to conduct appraisals this year and has also specifically laid off employees slated to receive variable pay later in the coming months. An impacted employee claimed that he lost INR 1 Lakh in variable component of the pay as the company laid him off just as he was set to receive the bonus in August 2023.

The company plans to provide a salary of two-months as severance pay to the affected employees and wrap up the full and final settlement by September or October this year.

BYJU’S Many Troubles

The new round of layoffs comes a couple of weeks after BYJU’S skipped paying $40 Mn in interest on a $1.2 Bn term loan B (TLB) and followed it up by filing a case before the New York Supreme Court against one of its lenders.

“… BYJU’S cannot be expected to and has elected not to make any further payment to the TLB lenders, including any interest, until the dispute is decided by the court,” the company said.

The potential debt crisis adds to a series of problems being faced by the edtech startup. This is not the first time that BYJU’S has undertaken mass layoffs. In October last year, it laid off more than 2,500 employees across multiple subsidiaries. BYJU’S-owned Toppr also fired around 350 employees in June last year.

As per Inc42 layoff tracker, the startup has handed out pink slips to over 4,000 employees since last year, excluding the current layoffs. Not just that, it has also been marred by ballooning losses. Its net loss surged nearly 20X to INR 4,588 Cr in FY21 from INR 231.69 Cr in FY20.

Besides, the startup is once again late in filing its financial statements and is yet to release its financial numbers for FY22.

It has also come under fire for lax corporate governance guardrails and raids by the Enforcement Directorate on premises linked to it for allegedly flouting foreign exchange norms.

The company has also faced the ire of investors. Earlier this year, investor BlackRock slashed the valuation of the edtech juggernaut on its books by 62% to $8.3 Bn.