Jobs of 245 employees of Uber Eats India have been affected, weeks after Uber Eats India was acquired by Zomato in an all-stock deal. Employees of the company have been informed that their current roles would be terminated by March 2020. According to an Uber spokesperson, 163 of these jobs are in Hyderabad.
Uber has given employees the option to choose to apply for roles available internally with Uber or take assistance from Uber to find another job. If employees choose not to apply to the internally available roles or if they are not placed internally by March, they will be given severance pay.
"They have been given an option to reapply for other open positions at Uber. In fact, a few have already received offers for roles within India and across the globe," an Uber spokesperson told TNM.
On the day of the acquisition announcement, the mail sent to the employees of Uber Eats India said that as part of the deal, their roles were affected. “I understand this change will be very difficult, so I want you to know that we are here for you, and that we are immensely grateful for everything you have done for Uber and Eats,” the letter stated.
According to a report in the Hindu, team leaders and senior team leaders, the equivalent of restaurant account managers, analytics, customer support staff and those who handle complaints on social media were informed of the lay-offs on January 21.
The all-stock deal gave Uber 9.99% ownership in Zomato, and the operations of Uber Eats India were discontinued that very day. Restaurants, delivery partners, and users of the Uber Eats app were directed to the Zomato platform from 7 am on January 21.
The sale of Uber Eats came after months of speculations. “...we have been very clear that our global Eats strategy is to be the #1 or #2 player in every market where we operate. This requires us to make tough calls in markets where that's not the case, ensuring we are growing efficiently and investing in areas where we see the most promising opportunities for profitable growth,” Uber had told Uber Eats India employees at the time of the acquisition.
Over the past year, as Uber Eats accumulated losses, it began scaling back operations. According to the Economic Times, it cut its annual cash allocation by half to $90-120 million.
During the announcement of its last quarterly earnings, it was revealed that the Uber Eats had dragged down the average net revenue for the quarter. For the last five months of December, Uber projected negative revenue of Rs 762.5 crore in Uber Eats India. The next earnings announcement of Uber is on Thursday.