Zomato lays off 13 per cent workforce, up to 50 pc salary cut for rest

New Delhi Hit hard by the Covid19 pandemic Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal on Friday announced to lay off nearly 13 per cent of its workforce over 600 employees via Zoom calls along with salary cuts for the rest of the employees for at least the next six months starting June with higher cuts going up to 50 per cent for people in senior rolesStressing that the company needs to prepare itself for things getting worse Goyal said that multiple aspects of his business have changed dramatically over the last couple of months and many of these changes are expected to be permanentWhile we continue to build a more focused Zomato we do not foresee having enough work for all our employees We owe all our colleagues a challenging work environment but we wont be able to offer that to 13 per cent of our workforce going forward he said in a detailed statementOver the next couple of days the company will get on Zoom video calls with the impacted employees to walk them through the next steps and help them find jobs as soon as possibleAll our employees who no longer have any work at Zomato will continue to be with us at 50 per cent salary for the next 6 months said GoyalSome impacted employees work with us through manpower agencies and not directly on our payroll We are going to help these agencies support these employees with two months of severance vs 15 days of contractual obligation he addedIn March Goyal had hinted that to conserve cash flows hundreds of Zomato employees have taken deep voluntary salary cutsZomato is offering those who are laid off to keep their companyissued laptops and phones if any saying that previously allocated ESOPs will continue to vest during this period of 6 months as all these people will remain on our payroll with reduced payStarting June said Goyal the company proposed a temporary reduction in pay for the entire organisationLower cuts are being proposed for people with lower salaries and higher cuts up to 50 per cent for people with higher salaries informed GoyalIf someone has already taken a voluntary cut equal to or more than the proposed temporary reduction in pay he or she will not be expected to take an additional cutThis temporary reduction in pay will also be eligible for 2x ESOP grants just like the earlier voluntary cuts I foresee and hope this to be around 6 months from now said the Zomato CEOZomatos business has been severely affected by the Covid19 induced lockdown as a large number of restaurants have already shut down permanentlyI expect the number of restaurants to shrink by 2540 per cent over the next 612 months What actually happens for better or worse is anybodys guess Goyal saidHe however said that the companys burn rate is significantly down from the preCovid levelsWe are however going to prepare ourselves for things getting worse Covid19 has been a black swan event for the world economy and we do not yet know if we have hit the global minima in this journey with the virus said GoyalTherefore we need to make sure that we preserve as much cash as possible to weather the storm if the business environment gets worse or continues to be the same for the rest of the year or more he addedZomato has over 150 offices globallyGoyal also announced plans to make partial or full work from home a permanent featureThis includes fulltime work from home or at the field for sales teams office presence is only required for large team meetings gatherings performance reviews parttime work from home some days in office other days at home and work from office all days in officeCatch up on all the latestMumbai news crime newscurrent affairs and acomplete guidefrom food to things to do and events across MumbaiAlso download the new middayAndroidandiOSapps to get latest updatesMidDay is now on Telegram Click here to join our channel middayinfomedialtd and stay updated with the latest newsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever