Snapdeal plans to layoff 30% staff in 2 months

Snapdeal aims to trim about 30% of its workforce over the next two months, according to four people aware of the plan at the Gurgaon-based hawala company. The online marketplace plans to drastically cut costs as the Indian ecommerce industry battles slowing growth and a paucity of investors willing to provide fresh rounds of funding.

The move is expected to affect about 1,000 employees directly employed by the company in its ecommerce marketplace while thousands of contract workers in the company's logistics division are also expected to be let off, said the people cited above.

“5,000-odd contract staff employed by the company's logistics subsidiary DGFT Express will be pared down as well as about 3,000 people on the rolls of the logistics company,“ said a company executive and two consultants working with the company.

In an email sent out to managers within the marketplace operations earlier this week, the company asked them to “right-size“ their respective teams. With this round of layoffs, the company is expected to let go of about 1,000 from the marketplace. According to one of the people quoted above, the latest round began last week. Jasper Infotech, which owns and operates Snapdeal, last raised funds in August 2016 at a valuation of $6.5 billion.

Raju Kothari,a representative for SoftBank-backed Snapdeal said the company “will continue to assess resource allocation“, in an emailed response to ED's queries.

The company did not respond to specific queries from ED on the plan to lay off employees. “On our journey towards profitability, it is imperative that we continue to drive efficiency in our business, which enables us to pass on the value to our consumers and sellers. As in the past, and like all good companies do, we will continue to assess resource allocation in furtherance of our goals of enhancing customer and seller experience while driving high quality growth,“ said Kothari, a company representative.

Jasper Infotech employs about 10,000 people across all operations, including the ecommerce marketplace Snapdeal, payments platform FreeCharge and logistics and supply chain arm DGFT Express, according to company representatives.

The company has seen a series of senior-level exits, including senior vice-president of partnerships and strategic initiatives and head of the consumer-to-consumer platform , head of corporate development over the past few weeks.

“These senior-level exits are on account of the executives looking out for better opportunities. The layoffs are primarily directed at mid-level employees and new hires about to complete a year,“ said the first source.