Layoffs at Byju’s will be investigated, says Kerala labour minister

“Employees of Byju’s app had come to meet me along with the officials of Prathidhwani, an IT employees’ welfare organisation at Technopark,” Sivankutty wrote on Facebook on Wednesday. “The employees have many grievances including job loss. The labour department will conduct a serious investigation in this regard.”

Byju’s said 140 people were let go from its Technopark office. “In this ongoing organisational restructuring for profitable growth, Byju’s is making every attempt to offer relevant relocation opportunities to the affected employees,” a company spokesperson said on the Technopark issue. “In this regard, while we are discontinuing a part of our Trivandrum operations to reduce redundancy, we are also offering the entire Trivandrum team an opportunity to relocate to Bengaluru.”

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Byju’s to sack up to 2,500 employees in ‘rationalisation’ bid

In a LinkedIn post on Tuesday, a group of IT professionals at Technopark alleged that Byju’s is planning to stop its operations from Thiruvananthapuram “without any prior notice to employees”.

It said that in the meeting with Sivankutty, Prathidhwani sought the state government’s intervention. The organisation also sought compensatory benefits, including payment of salary for the month of October and encashment of all earned leaves, as per the LinkedIn post.

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Byju’s has denied the allegations. “We have provided them (employees being let go) more than a month’s time to decide on this matter,” the company spokesperson said. “If they choose to not use this opportunity, we have made available a generous and progressive exit package to all employees impacted by the restructuring, including extended health insurance benefits, outplacement services and garden leave. This package even includes an assured opportunity to be rehired by Byju’s within the next 12 months at any operational centre across India.”

Earlier this month, India’s most valuable unicorn had said it would
“rationalise” about 5% of its 50,000-strong workforce across departments such as product, content, media and technology in a phased manner. This translates into layoffs of around 2,500 people.