The travel and hospitality sector have been the worst impacted.

MakeMyTrip has decided to lay off 350 employees as the outbreak of the novel coronavirus impacted business. In a note to employees late last week, the firm said that the pandemic has changed the context and viability of some of the firm’s business lines in its current form.

Prior to this exercise, the Gurgaon-based company’s total staff count stood at about 3,500. “Keeping this in mind, we have had to take this sad but inevitable decision of rightsizing our workforce in these businesses,” said founder & group executive chairman Deep Kalra and co-founder & group CEO Rajesh Magow. “The staff rationalisation we have had to undertake is mapped to our future business strategy and is in no way a reflection of the work done by the people in these teams,” Kalra and Magow said.

The company said it is not clear as to when travelling will normalise and thereby it is evident that the impact of Covid-19 is going to be long-drawn.

The travel and hospitality sector have been the worst impacted as the virus halted operations for nearly two months. While companies clocked zero revenues, they continued to incur fixed expenses.

With this move, MakeMyTrip joins a host of other firms including BookMyShow, Zomato, Swiggy and Ola who have recently cut jobs to reduce costs.

MakeMyTrip said the impacted employees will be paid salary as per their notice periods apart from being extended outplacement support, mediclaim coverage and leave encashment facility.

“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,” Kalra and Magow said.