Edtech giant Unacademy has laid off another 380 employees in its fourth official round of layoffs in less five months after it laid off 350 people last November. The latest job cuts would affect 12 per cent of the company’s workforce. Gaurav Munjal, co-founder and CEO of Unacademy, put out a note to all employees on the company's Slack channel, apologising for the action and taking full responsibility for the job cuts.
“Dear team, I never thought I would have to send out another message like this, but here I am. We have taken every step in the right direction to make our core business profitable, yet it's not enough. We have to go further, we have to go deeper,” Gaurav Munjal wrote.
“Unfortunately, this has led me to take another difficult decision. We will be reducing the size of our team by 12 per cent to ensure that we can meet the goals we are chasing in the current realities we face. I did not anticipate I would have to do this again, and I'm very sorry.”
The laid off Unacademy employees will get the following aid from the company while they battle the career crisis.
Severance pay equivalent of notice period and an additional one month’s pay.
Accelerated vesting of one year for employees who have been with Unacademy for at least one year.
Medical insurance coverage for additional six months, until September 30.
Dedicated placement and career support.
Unacademy was founded by Munjal, Roman Saini and Hemesh Singh in 2015. The unicorn, India's second-most valued edtech startup, provides an online learning platform for preparation of various competitive tests. The company has raised $877 million in funding to date and was last valued at $3.4 billion, when it raised $440 million from Temasek, General Atlantic, and others in August 2021.
Unacademy’s competitor Byju's laid off 1,000-1,200 employees in February, as the world's most-valued edtech company sought to bring down costs amid slower revenue growth and a worsening funding season. The company had laid off around 5,000 employees last October.
Tens of thousands of people across the world have lost their jobs in the past few months as global technology giants are on a layoff spree globally. Google, Amazon, Meta, Twitter, Microsoft, Accenture and Goldman Sachs are among companies that have sacked employees recently or frozen hiring in the face of sluggish consumer spending, higher interest rates and surging inflation worldwide.
