After Better.com’s Vishal Garg, British CEO sacks 800 employees via video message

On Friday, P&O Ferries confirmed it is losing about £1 million a day for each day its services are not running. (Representative image)

After Better.com's Vishal Garg, a British shipping company's CEO recently announced that it is sacking 800 seafaring employees.

P&O Ferries is one of the UK's leading ferry companies and carries over 10 million passengers a year. However, its demand slumped in the pandemic. On Friday, the company confirmed it is losing about £1 million a day for each day its services are not running.

According to the BBC, nearly a quarter of P&O Ferries' workers were informed about their final day of employment via a video message on Thursday, which prompted in sit-in protests.

The sacked staff also said the video message had referred to a "generous severance package" being offered, but no details were given.

But unions have hit out against the decision, calling it a "dark day" in the shipping industry. According to the BBC, the RMT union labelled the move one of the "most shameful acts in the history of British industrial relations".

Its national secretary Darren Procter told a crowd of about 250 demonstrators: "We're going to make sure our workers get back onboard their vessels."

Read more: Pregnant women among Better.com employees sacked in Vishal Garg's Women's Day mass layoffs

P&O Ferries worker Andrew Smith told the BBC he felt "utter dismay" after working for the company for 22 years.

"It's our lives," he said. "It's how our families have grown up, knowing that this is what we do, and it's just been turned on its head within a matter of hours."

The incident reminds of Vishal Garg, the CEO of US-based digital-first homeownership company Better.com, who laid off 900 of his employees in the US and in India on a Zoom  2021 in a single Zoom call.

This month, Garg again fired thousands of his India-based employees. This time, however, employees received an email from CFO Kevin Ryan, confirming a large-scale layoff with details of the severance package.