Big news: Zomato fired 600 employees in one go, took the decision due to slowdown in delivery business

Zomato has laid off 600 customer employees within a year. Moneycontrol has quoted people familiar with the matter in a report saying that the food and grocery delivery company has had to take this decision due to sluggish growth in the delivery vertical and losses in the quick commerce business Blinkit.

Meanwhile, the company has increased the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to automate its customer support functions to reduce costs.

There were 1,500 employees a year ago
The Gurugram-based firm hired 1,500 employees in the customer support system under its Zomato Associate Accelerator Program (ZAAP) a year ago, in which they were given the opportunity to transfer to sales, operations, program management, support, supply chain and category teams. But, the contracts of most of the employees have not been renewed.

Employees fired suddenly
The report quoted several former and current employees as saying that the affected employees were given one month's salary and were fired without any notice period, citing poor performance, and other reasons including punctuality.

"Most of the employees recruited under Zomato's ZAAP program last year have been fired without any clear information during the last week. This has happened in their offices in Gurugram and Hyderabad. The atmosphere has become really tense," a current employee said on the condition of anonymity. Employees have also alleged that the company's dependence on them has also reduced due to automating Zomato's customer support system. 

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