Uber has laid off 10-15 percent of its employees in India as a part of its global retrenchment drive. Uber has 350-400 employees, and these terminations will have an impact on all of Uber’s business in the country, including its online food delivery vertical UberEats. The San-Francisco-based cab-aggregator emailed the employees informing them of its intention of terminating 350 people across the world, the majority of which is in the United States and Canada.
Uber India constitutes about 2 percent of Uber’s revenue but contributes to a large part of its expenses, which makes it a target for cost-cutting. It is unclear though which arm of Uber will take the biggest hit in India. The latest round of downsizing will take Uber’s total retrenchment count to 1,200 which is 1 percent of Uber’s total staff strength. This is the third round of layoffs at the transportation major which comes at the backdrop of its losses due to the poor performance of IPO. Earlier in July, staff from the marketing and analytics team were let go. The next round took place in September, which did not affect India. However, product and technology positions were eliminated back then.
According to sources privy to the matter, the policy team has been shrinking consistently and most of the work has been outsourced to one of the big India law firms. It was reported earlier that Uber had restructured its corporate holdings and brought its India business, including food delivery, under uber India Systems. The rides business and Uber’s food delivery arm were part of Uber BV, a private limited liability company registered in the Netherlands.
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