Sesa Sen By Express News Service BENGALURU: The last few months have seen a host of fast-growing internet start-ups resort to lay-off as investors seek profitability amid a more uncertain global economy and a maturing start-up landscape. While high-profile start-ups including the likes of Ola, Oyo, Paytm, Quikr and Zomato have already handed out pink slips as part of its move to scrap “costly activities”, experts have indicated the startup industry may also see a wave of exits and closures this year in the face of no profit. Softbank-backed Oyo said it is weeding out obsolete roles. The budget hospitality firm has reportedly fired around 600 of its 12,000 China employees and 1,200 India employees recently, following which founder Ritesh Agarwal had shared an e-mail to employees to explain the rationale behind the layoff without disclosing the actual number. OYO “will reorganise more teams across businesses and functions,” as part of the new strategic objectives for 2020 and hence “We are asking some of our impacted colleagues to move to a new career outside of OYO,” Agarwal recently said in an internal letter to employees as he put in 2020 agenda to steer towards profitability — something SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son has been stressing on after his star bets — WeWork, Uber, etc surprised him with their unexpected IPO performances. While the letter mentioned “some roles” will be axed, multiple reports estimate it to be as high as 2,400. Similarly, ride hailing firm Ola has also cut expenses on employee benefits by 20 per cent to Rs 414 crore for fiscal year 2019 and trimmed 8 per cent of its staff in the last few months, reports suggests. Others like digital payments platform Paytm, too, shed at least 5-7 per cent of its workforce in a move to curb expenses, people familiar with the matter said. It’s not just the Softbank-backed portfolio that is under pressure. Other cautious investors are also tightening belts, after the exuberant levels of funding that the startup ecosystem has seen in the preceding years. Consequently, online food delivery firm Zomato and Quikr too have shown employees the door. While Zomato laid off about 600 executives, or close to 10 per cent of its overall staff strength, Quikr also let go close to 1,000 workers, reports indicated. The situation may not improve in the current financial year either. “In FY19, India created 8.97 million new payrolls as per the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation data. In FY20, as per current projections, this number could be at least 1.58 million lower,” according to SBI research report- Ecowrap.

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