IPO-bound OYO to lay off 600 in its tech team, hire 250 in sales roles- QHN

Hospitality major OYO has announced it will downsize 10 per cent of its workforce, laying off 600 of its 3,700-employee base, primarily in tech roles. However, the company will also conduct fresh hiring of 250 members in other roles.

The company said it was “making wide-ranging changes in its organisational structure”. It is downsizing its product and engineering, corporate headquarters, and the OYO Vacation Homes teams, while it plans to add strength to its partner relationship management and business development teams.

The product and engineering teams were being merged for a smoother functioning, the firm said in a statement, adding that the downsizing in tech was also happening in teams that were developing pilots and proofs of concept, such as in-app gaming, social content curation, and patron-facilitated content.

The company added that members of projects which had now been successfully developed and deployed, such as ‘Partner SaaS’ were being either let go or were being redeployed in core product & tech areas such as AI-driven pricing, ordering, and payments.

According to a person close to the company, these layoffs would likely take place over two weeks.

As the integration of various functions of its European Vacation Homes business progressed, it was downsizing in some parts of the business to increase efficiency and harness synergies, the statement said.

The company said it had also reassessed its corporate headquarters base afresh and was merging congruent roles and flattening team structures where needed.

Talking about the reorganisation, Ritesh Agarwal, founder and group CEO, OYO, said: “We will be doing all that we can to ensure that most of the people we are having to let go, are gainfully employed. Every member of the OYO team and I myself will proactively endorse the strength of each of these employees. It is unfortunate that we are having to part ways with a lot of these talented individuals who have made valuable contributions to the company. As OYO grows and a need for some of these roles emerges in the future, we commit to reaching out to them first and offering them the opportunity.”

The company will be helping as many employees as it can in the outplacement and continuing with their medical insurance coverage ranging between 3 months on average.

These layoffs come at a time when many other large start-ups are letting go of employees.

The edtech sector in particular has seen widespread layoffs. Last month, SoftBank-backed edtech unicorn Unacademy let go of 350 employees. The company’s rival, Byju’s, had also initiated layoffs of 2,500 of its 50,000 workforce.

Before that, B2B e-commerce unicorn Udaan also laid off 10 per cent of its workforce, sacking 350 employees.

Further, food aggregator Zomato has also reportedly initiated layoffs of 3 per cent of its workforce recently.