After Zomato, Swiggy Announces 1,100 Layoffs as COVID-19 Hits Online Food Orders

The layoffs at Swiggy come as the nation enters lockdown 4.0 to curb the spread of the highly contagious novel coronavirus.

New Delhi| On Monday, Food delivery company Swiggy said that it will lay off 1,100 employees over the next few days, as the COVID-19 pandemic hit its core and cloud kitchen businesses, according to the company’s blog.

Swiggy co-founder and CEO Sriharsha Majety wrote in an email to the company: “Today is one of the saddest days for Swiggy as we have to go through an unfortunate downsizing exercise.” He also said the company had already begun closing down its kitchen facilities temporarily or permanently since the COVID-19 outbreak hit the nation badly.

Food delivery company will lay off 1,100 employees, or nearly 14% of its workforce, to cut costs, as a weeks-long nationwide lockdown to curb the coronavirus outbreak hits demand for online food ordering.

Swiggy is one of India’s best-known startups which is also among several that are laying off staffers and reshaping their company in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, which has forced 1.3 billion Indians indoors and crippled business.

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Lockdown in India begun on 25th March, and though several curbs are being eased, public places such as restaurants remain closed, hurting eateries themselves as well as companies such as Swiggy and main rival Zomato.

The national lockdown has been extended by the central government till May 31.

The total cases in India surged to 96,169 including over 36,000 cured/discharged or migrated and 3,021 deaths amid lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19.

In the past 24 hours, 157 casualties were recorded. A staggering 5,034 new cases of COVID-19 were recorded in the last 24 hours, highest so far.