Unacademy Lays Off Another 10% of Employees

Unacademy, one of the Indian ed-tech giants is planning to lay off another 10% of its employees amidst the difficult economic situation.

Previously around 1000 permanent and contractual employees were fired by the company in April 2022. These affected employees include 300 educators.

Gaurav Munjal, the CEO of Unacademy had promised there would be no more lay offs and the company would work on other methods to cut down costs.

He cites schools reopening offline and harsh economic conditions to be reasons for this layoff.

According to Munjal, the company took excessive measures to avoid this situation. They reduced their monthly burn and controlled operational spending. They also limited their marketing budget along with all redundant expenditures within the company. However, this wasn’t of much help during these unprecedented times.

Munjal said that the HR department sent a detailed email to the employees explaining the situation 48 hours in advance. The company promised to give all the affected employees severance pay equivalent to the notice period and an additional two months’ worth of pay.

These employees are also getting medical insurance coverage for an additional year along with dedicated support for their further placements.

Unacademy’s business has suffered immensely with the reopening of physical learning centers.

The company faced an 85% loss in this financial year. The revenue was just INR 719 Cr. as compared to loss of INR 2848 Cr. Therefore, it has decided to take a step back from online learning models and focus more on physical teaching models.

The company is spending millions on this project despite the economic crisis faced by them.

The company’s marketing cost is skyrocketing. It has increased by 33% in the financial year 2022, amounting to INR 549 Cr., which is huge for a company undergoing massive losses.