Suniel Shetty 'If you’re not seeing growth, switch to a survival mindset': Suniel Shetty on BYJU's layoff plans
Mumbai/IBNS: Actor-producer-businessman Suniel Shetty has expressed his opinion over Edtech giant BYJU's decision to lay off 2,500 employees from several departments in order to cut expenses amid increasing losses.
In a LinkedIn post, the actor wrote that he is praying that the impacted ones will soon be able to get back on their feet at the earliest.
He also shared that he would like to think that it was not an easy decision for the company to make.
Without mentioning BYJU's, Suniel Shetty wrote in his post, "a recent article about a company laying off 2500 of its employees, was a tough one to swallow. Times 4, that's 10000 lives affected. I'd like to think that this wasn't an easy decision to make. Praying that the impacted ones are able to get back on their feet at the earliest."
"While valuations and fundraising activity saw a sharp rise over the last few years, it is now clear that of late the global sentiment has turned somewhat conservative," he added.
The actor claimed, in reference to the world economic downturn, "India may or may not be affected by the severity of a global slowdown to the same level as some of the other major economies."
The successful restauranteur added that he continues to believe in the "India story" and wrote, "I continue to believe in the India story. Among other factors, our population & its aspirations still present good businesses with a huge opportunity to continue their growth, even if it's at a slower rate than earlier. However, this is a good time for early-stage, small and mid-sized businesses to establish a few operating principles, at least until the sentiment starts to improve."
"Stay Alive - assuming no one can predict how bad the global slowdown will get, plan for the worst. If you’re not seeing growth, switch to a survival mindset. Even if it means just hitting salaries & basic profits. The opportunities will return, if you stay alive," he advised.
Concluding his statement, he gave the example of former Indian batsman Rahul Dravid and stated, "Think long term. Think sprint vs marathon. Think Rahul Dravid. Stable & slow is just as great."
On Oct 12, BYJU's announced that it will hand out pink slips to nearly 2,500 employees across departments to cut costs amid growing losses in the next six months.
"To avoid redundancies and duplication of roles, and by leveraging technology better, around five percent of BYJU’S 50,000-strong workforce is expected to be rationalised across product, content, media, and technology teams in a phased manner," the statement said.
The edtech major said its India K-10 acquisitions including Toppr, Meritnation, TutorVista, Scholar, and HashLearn, will be consolidated into a single business unit, whereas Aakash and Great Learning will continue to function as separate organisations.
