Byju workers want to jump ship before being ‘asked to pack overnight’

Last week, Deloitte Haskins & Sells, the statutory auditor of Byju’s parent company Think & Learn Pvt. Ltd for six years, has announced that it will be leaving the company with immediate effect.

New Delhi: Amid layoffs and financial problems at edtech giant Byju’s, the employees who haven’t yet received a pink slip are looking for jobs elsewhere.

“Morale is at an all-time low. Literally every person has a job portal open on their laptop at all times. Everyone is desperate to leave before they are asked to pack overnight,” a senior manager at Byju’s told Reuters. “Right now, the situation is so bleak, subordinates sit with their managers and look for work.”

However, most of them fail to find a job during a hiring winter in the edtech realm, recruiters told ET.

There are currently more than 21,000 Byju employees in the labor market, according to specialist staffing firm Xpheno, ET reported.

Xpheno’s head of staff research, Prasadh MS, told ET that Byju’s active job seekers number was between 2,000 and 3,000 a month ago, which has grown 7x in volume over the past 30 days.

“With nearly 50 percent of employees currently in the job market, it could be a difficult time for this talent pool to get an opportunity now,” he said.

Last week, Deloitte Haskins & Sells, the statutory auditor of Byju’s parent company Think & Learn Pvt. Ltd for six years, has announced that it will be leaving the company with immediate effect. Deloitte cited long-delayed statements for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2022, Mint reported. Deloitte was appointed last year as an auditor for Aakash Educational Services Ltd, owned by Byju, and unit Aakash EduTech Pvt. Ltd.

Several employees, all of whom asked for anonymity, said they had not received memos about the departure of Deloitte’s accountant and board members, Reuters reported.

Although Byju’s denied board initially exists, it confirmed in a statement late Friday that a “few” investors had vacated their board seats. “It’s all been eerily quiet so far,” said the manager who spoke to Deloitte, adding that the lack of communication from the company’s management increased workers’ concerns.

As of October 2022, Byju’s has laid off thousands of employees to cut costs as demand for online tutoring declined after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. Two of the employees who spoke to Reuters said performance incentives, bonuses and ratings had ground to a halt amid the turmoil.