Ride-hailing and delivery platform Grab has announced that it will be laying off about 360 people, or slightly under 5 per cent of its employees, in a letter from co-founder and CEO Anthony Tan to Grab employees today (June 16).
The layoff comes less than a week after they announced last Thursday (June 11) that they will be limiting the performance-based commission rebate to its top-performing 18,000 drivers. It also cut a series of schemes, including monthly trip-target bonuses and birthday rewards.
The firm also separately announced last Monday (June 9) that it is launching its Small Business Booster Programme to help small businesses.
Back in April, they had cut the pay of its senior management by up to 20 per cent and encouraged its employees to go on voluntary no-pay leave as the COVID-19 outbreak batters businesses.
“Since February, we have seen the stark impact of COVID-19 on businesses globally, ours included. At the same time, it has become clear that the pandemic will likely result in a prolonged recession and we have to prepare for what may be a long recovery period,” wrote Anthony in the open letter.
“Over the past few months, we reviewed all costs, cut back on discretionary spending, and implemented pay cuts for senior management. In spite of all this, we recognize that we still have to become leaner as an organization in order to tackle the challenges of the post-pandemic economy,” he continued.
He said that Grab will make some non-core projects defunct, double-down on their delivery verticals and have redeployed Grabbers to meet the increased customer demand for deliveries.
“We were able to save many jobs through this redeployment of resources and it helped limit the scope of the reduction exercise to just under 5 percent.”
“I assure you that this will be the last organization-wide layoff this year and I am confident as we execute against our refreshed plans to meet our targets, we will not have to go through this painful exercise again in the foreseeable future,” he affirmed their employees.
Featured Image Credit: Grab