Indian startups fired 6,000 employees in third quarter, says report

This can be attributed to investors lowering funding amid high volatility in global markets

Indian startups fired 6,000 employees in the third quarter of the current financial year (Q3FY23) and an additional 4,000 in January alone, according to a report by CIEL HR Services, as reported by the Economic Times (ET). 

Several startups, including unicorns like Byju's and Swiggy, have slowed down their hiring and also laid off thousands of employees. This can be attributed to investors lowering the funding amid high volatility in global markets. 

In recent months, the layoffs range between 3 to 18 per cent. The most impacted were the entry and middle-level employees. Also, people from sales, marketing, engineering and administration were the most affected. 

"Under 5 per cent, layoffs are a much-needed clean-up activity with mostly bad hires or wrong hiring decisions," Anshuman Das, co-founder of Careernet told ET. Another expert, AR Ramesh, director at Adecco India, said that Job losses are most prevalent at the junior to mid-level across startups and unicorns and "This can be predominantly attributed to key factors like learnability quotient, skill gaps, less stringent entry barriers and wrong hiring techniques".

The CIEL report, however, said that the hiring intent is expected to rise in the next few quarters. In fact, it has already started to improve. The report said that until January, the number of open jobs rose by 16 per cent as compared to the quarter ending December. 

In the January-June period, hiring intent is likely to rise 10-20 per cent as compared to June-December 2022.