OYO Announces Hundreds Of Lay-Offs, Founder Calls It "Unfortunate"

IPO-bound travel tech firm OYO today announced it will downsize about 10 per cent of its 3,700-employee base by cutting 600 jobs in the technology and corporate verticals and hiring 250 members, primarily in the relationship management teams.

OYO said the move is part of implementing wide ranging changes in its organisational structure. It is downsizing its product & engineering, corporate headquarters, and OYO Vacation Homes teams, while it adds people to the partner relationship management and the business development teams.

"OYO will downsize 10 per cent of its 3,700-employee base, which includes fresh hiring of 250 members and letting go of 600 employees," a statement said.

Product and engineering teams are being merged for smoother functioning, it added.

The downsizing in tech is also happening in teams which were developing pilots and proof of concepts such as in-app gaming, social content curation and patron facilitated content, the company said. Additionally, members of projects which have now been successfully developed and deployed such as 'Partner SaaS' are being either let go or are being redeployed in core product & tech areas such as AI (artificial intelligence) driven pricing, ordering and payments, it informed.

The company will be adding 250 members primarily in its relationship management teams to ensure better consumer and partner satisfaction, and in business development teams to help scale up the number of hotels & homes on its platform.

As the integration of various functions of its European vacation homes business progresses, it is downsizing in some parts of the business to increase efficiency and harness synergies, OYO stated.

The company has also reassessed its corporate headquarters base afresh and is merging congruent roles and flattening team structures where needed, it added.

The company informed that it will be helping as many employees as it can in the outplacement and continuing with their medical insurance cover ranging up to three months on an average.

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," Mr Agarwal added.
 

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