BENGALURU (Reuters) – WeWork’s India franchise said on Tuesday it laid off 100 employees, or 20% of its workforce, as the office-sharing startup joins a slew of firms that are cutting costs and revamping operations as a prolonged nationwide lockdown to curb the coronavirus has kept people indoors.
A number of Indian startups, including restaurant aggregator Zomato and food delivery service Swiggy, have cut down their employees, as they reshape their business in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has forced 1.3 billion Indians indoors and crippled business.
“We have optimised and planned our team strength based on the core business, as we continue to execute our long-term business strategy in India and aim to be profitable by early 2021,” said Karan Virwani, chief executive at WeWork India, set up by real estate firm Embassy Group over 2 years ago.
In October last year, WeWork India’s chief shareholder Jitu Virwani had said the company would be profitable by end of 2020.
Softbank Group Corp <9984.T> has poured in more than $13.5 billion into New York-based WeWork.
(Reporting by Chandini Monnappa in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich)
