The intangibles

Workforce rationalisation can lead to immense gains—many of them seemingly unrelated to the aspect of sheer ‘numbers’—but only if carried out with strategic diligence.

- JOYDIP DEY

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The ongoing COVID-19 crisis has left economies across the world faltering and has also led to a scenario of unprecedented uncertainty on the human resources front. Indian IT services companies may have to resort to job cuts to rationalise costs in the short term if the global economy does not improve in the next three quarters, industry body NASSCOM has said. IBM has undertaken a major layoff exercise globally. This includes a few hundred jobs in India, where IBM has about a third of its global strength of 350,000. Many of those impacted are said to be mid-level executives, including project managers and above, some of whom have spent over a decade in the company. Similarly, as per media reports, around 400 executives would be asked to leave Cognizant Technologies very soon.

Amazon India is looking to hire 50,000 people for seasonal or temporary roles. Cab aggregator Ola has decided to lay off 1,400 employees, Uber 600 employees, Swiggy 1,100 employees, Zomato 520 employees—the list goes on. A major workforce rationalisation initiative is under way in India Inc owing to the uncertainty triggered by the pandemic.