Kerala Government To Meet BYJU’s Officials Today Over Employee Termination

The Kerala government has fixed a meeting today with BYJU’s officials over the allegation of the forced resignation of 170 employees. Earlier, the government called for a meeting with the company on October 25. Citing short notice, the office-bearers of the company chose not to take part in it. 
 
On October 25, 170 employees met the state's labour minister V. Sivankutty alleging that India’s largest edtech platform BYJU’s is shutting down its office in Thiruvananthapuram and forcing the employees to resign. They demanded compensation and the release of their pending salaries. The minister posted about this meeting on his Facebook page adding that the Labour Department will inspect the whole matter.  

According to multiple reports, BYJU’s addressed the grievances of the employees and offered them relocations to either Kochi or Bengaluru. After furnishing its audited FY2020-21 financials in September, the edtech unicorn announced a possible “rationalisation” of 5 per cent of its 50,000-strong workforce in a phased manner, which meant a possible termination of 2,500 employees in the coming months. 

Criticised for this large layoff, Byju Raveendran, the founder and CEO of the company explained his contrition over cutting down the employee bandwidth. In an email to his employees, he wrote, “I am truly sorry to those who will have to leave Byju’s. You are not just a name to me, You are not a number. You are not just five percent of my company, you are five percent of me.”  He also hinted towards a possible re-hiring of the laid-off employees. As per several media reports, the CEO asked the human resource (HR) team to find new job roles for the terminated employees.