MakeMyTrip Lays Off 350 Employees as Travel Sector Suffers Due To COVID-19 Crisis

MakeMyTrip is laying off around 350 employees, according to a letter sent from the founder and CEO to the teams. This comes after BookMyShow announced an 18 percent cut in staff strength earlier this week. The travel and tourism industry is said to be one of the worst hit sectors by the pandemic, and this sector will only see some recovery after travel restrictions are relaxed and international borders are opened up. Impacted employees include extended mediclaim, leave encashment, gratuity, and outplacement support.

Founder Deep Kalra and CEO Rajesh Magow sent out a letter to all MakeMyTrip employees informing them about the layoff. The letter was accessed by Gadgets 360, and the reason for this layoff has been attributed to the COVID-19 crisis, and its long-drawn impact on the travel industry.“What's evident is that the impact of COVID-19 crisis is going to be long drawn for us. It's unclear when traveling will become a way of life, as it was pre-Covid. We are living through extraordinary times which have impacted individuals, communities, businesses, countries and our world at a magnitude unknown before and there is no let-up in sight,” the executives wrote in their letter.

COVID-19 Tech Job Losses Over 10,000 Now, Show No Sign of Slowing

CNBC first reported a total of 350 employees have been laid off in this downsizing exercise. The impacted 350 employees at MakeMyTrip have been offered mediclaim coverage for individuals and their families till the end of the year, leave encashment, gratuity, retaining the right to exercise part of RSUs as applicable, retention of company laptops and outplacement support apart from salary payments as per their notice periods. The company notes that layoffs have been conducted in certain lines of business (LoBs) that are far deeply affected and will take much longer than the others to recover. Kalra and Magow end the letter with, “It is undoubtedly the toughest decision we have had to take so far and it's the saddest day for us as an organisation.”

Photo Credit: CareersvsCOVID19

According to Big.Jobs data collated from over 700 companies, the tourism sector will be at the highest risk for conducting lay off and forcing pay cuts on employees. After the lockdown, tech companies in India have seen over 10,000 layoffs because of COVID-19. The most recent one was BookMyShow which laid off 270 employees, around 18 percent of its total staff. Zomato has announced a layoff for 600 employees and up to 50 percent pay cut for the remainder for the next six months. Swiggy, on the other hand, had to lay off 1,100 employees due to the impact of coronavirus. Uber has laid off 600 employees while Ola laid off 1,400 people. A recent survey by Nasscomm claims that nine out of ten Indian startups are bleeding.