Unacademy dismisses 350 employees for third layoffs within a year

With schools, universities, and physical tuition centres reopening, SoftBank-backed Unacademy has laid off 10% of its personnel, or approximately 350 workers. This is another another sign that the much-discussed financial winter is getting worse for India's edtech startups.

The development comes four months after Gaurav Munjal, CEO and co-founder of the edtech unicorn had told employees in an internal email that the company would not exercise any more layoffs. In his most recent message, the CEO expressed regret for having reversed his position.

“I want to apologise to everyone sincerely since we made a commitment of no layoffs in the organization but the market challenges have forced us to reevaluate our decisions. Funding has significantly slowed down and a large portion of our core business has moved offline," said in the email. 

 “We are no strangers to the harsh economic conditions that everyone is witnessing these days. These are very difficult times for the technology ecosystem. And things are getting worse with each passing day," Munjal added.

 “I am deeply saddened to share that we will have to say goodbye to some of our extremely talented Unacademy employees to reduce the redundancies in our operations. These would be across the Unacademy group from verticals where we have to take a difficult decision either to scale down or shut," Munjal said.

Human resources will notify affected workers within 48 hours, Munjal said, and those who are let go will get two months' salary in addition to whatever notice money they are owed.

“The next few days will be about helping the members who are leaving Unacademy and I would like to request all functions and teams to support this transition," Munjal added. 

In June, after a performance improvement plan, Unacademy laid off 150 workers. In addition, between 600 and 800 sales and marketing personnel, as well as some temporary workers and part-time teachers and tutors, were let off in April.

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Furthermore, Unacademy "restructured" in March by laying off over 100 employees of the PrepLadder team. In 2020, the firm spent $50 million to buy PrepLadder, a website that helps students prepare for post-graduate medical admission exams.

Indian IT education businesses have let off thousands of workers in recent months to reduce expenses and speed up the process of turning a profit.

Byju's, one of Unacademy's main competitors and the most valued edtech firm in India, is cutting around 2,500 jobs. When Vedantu, another edtech unicorn, downsized in 2022, it lay off more than 700 workers.