Oyo to lay off 600 employees, hire 250 new members

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Online hotel aggregator Oyo on December 3 said it is "letting go of 600 employees", who are part of the product and engineering, corporate headquarters and Oyo vacation homes teams.

At the same time, the company noted that it would be hiring 250 new members for partner relationship management and business development teams.

With the laying off of 600 employees and hiring of 250 fresh members, the net downsizing will be around 350. This adds up to nearly 10 percent of Oyo's 3,700-employee base.

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“We will be doing all that we can to ensure that most of the people we are having to let go, are gainfully employed," Oyo Group CEO and Founder Ritesh Agarwal said.

"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," he added.

The company, in a release, noted that it will be helping the employees with outplacement and would be continuing with their medical insurance cover of around 3 months on an average.

Oyo further noted that the product and engineering teams "are being merged" for smoother functioning. 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", it further said.

The rejig by Oyo comes at a time when the company is considered to be preparing for its initial public offering (IPO). It had filed the preliminary papers for the issue in October 2021 to raise a targeted amount of Rs 8,430 crore via the initial share sale. However, the company has delayed the IPO, citing the market's current volatile nature.