More than 170 workers working in Byju’s Thiruvananthapuram Technopark office met with State Labor Minister V Sivankutty on October 25 to demand compensation and pending salaries.
An office of edtech unicorn Byju’s that was operating from the Technopark in Thiruvananthapuram has been closed. More than 170 workers working in the industry met State Labor Minister V Sivankutty on Tuesday, Oct. 25 to ask for compensation and outstanding salaries.
“The employees of Byju’s app from Technopark Thiruvananthapuram had come to see me. The workers have many grievances, including job loss. The Ministry of Labor will conduct a serious investigation in this regard,” Minister Sivankutty posted on his Facebook page.
Technopark Today, the community media platform of Technopark employees, posted on their social media pages that Byju management forced employees to resign. With the help of Prathidwani, an employee welfare organization for Technopark employees, the employees are demanding “salary payment for October 2022 on November 1, 2022, one-time settlement of salary for the next three months, from November 2022 to January 31. , 2023, as well as redemption of earned leave and full settlement of variable compensation (as applicable to each employee) from management.”
Byju’s is currently worth $22 billion. The losses were marked at Rs 4,588 crore in FY 2021. This was almost 20 times more than the loss of Rs 232 crore in FY 2020. Accounting firm Deloitte expressed multiple concerns about the company’s accounts. As a result, the submission of the audited results was delayed by 18 months.
At present, Byju’s has approximately 50,000 employees. The company is expected to lay off 5%, ie 2,500 people, in phases to rationalize its workforce, to be profitable in FY 23.
Many allegations have also been made against the company’s work ethic. In 2021, the BBC had reported that behind the meteoric rise of Byju’s lies were customer disputes regarding refunds and faulty services, parents being pushed into debt and disgruntled employees being bullied with aggressive targets. The BBC reported that the company’s sales tactics “included incessant cold calls and sales pitches whose effect was to convince them that their child will be left behind if they do not buy a product from Byju”. Disadvantaged parents claimed they had been misled by sales agents, who were “least affected” by refunds once the sale was closed.
Founded by Byju Raveendran in 2011, the world’s most highly regarded edtech startup is funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and major private equity firms such as Tiger Global and General Atlantic.