Ola Cabs, a taxi aggregator with offices in Bengaluru, has terminated the employment of several of its staff as part of a “restructuring exercise”.
The number of employees who were impacted by the transfer was not disclosed by the firm.
According to a report by the media, 200 employees may have received pink slips as a result of the exercise. According to the article, those fired worked for Ola Cabs, the parent company, as well as Ola Financial Services Pvt Ltd and Ola Electric.
“We regularly conduct restructuring exercises to improve efficiencies, and there are roles that are now redundant. We will continue making new hires in engineering and design including senior talent in our key priority areas,” an Ola spokesperson said.
The change occurs after the SoftBank-backed company, in September, abandoned its intention to fire 200 people from technical positions.
“It is a business restructuring and rationalization (exercise). There will be new hires in focus teams,” the spokesperson said, adding that the firm may ramp up hiring in several verticals including engineering and design.
This week, the ride-hailing platform also closed Avail Finance, a neobanking company it had bought in March 2022. According to The Economic Times, it has halted lending through the neobanking platform and intends to combine Avail Finance with its subsidiary Ola Money.
Ola joins a slew of digital businesses that have terminated staff members in order to reduce expenses, with the edtech industry experiencing a surge in layoffs.
In an effort to reduce expenses, business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce platform Moglix let off around 3% of its workforce, or roughly 30–40 individuals, last week.
Oyo also stated in December that it will shut down projects and consolidate teams, which would result in the firing of 600 executives from its technical and product departments. 250 sales professionals were to be hired, according to the company.
