Byju’s Employees Looking To Jump Ship Before Being ‘Asked To Pack Up Overnight’

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

New Delhi: Amid layoffs and financial troubles at edtech giant Byju’s, the employees who haven’t been given a pink slip yet are seeking jobs elsewhere.

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

However, most of them are not finding any jobs amid a hiring winter in the edtech domain, recruiters told ET.

As per specialist staffing firm Xpheno, there are currently more than 21,000 Byju’s employees in the job market, reported ET.

Xpheno’s workforce research head Prasadh MS told ET that the active count of jobseekers from Byju’s was in the 2,000-3,000 range a month ago which has grown 7x in volume over the last 30 days.

“With nearly 50 per cent of employees currently active in the job market, it may be a rough patch for this talent pool to get an opportunity now,” he said.

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

Several employees, all of whom requested anonymity, said they had received no memos about the exits of auditor Deloitte and the board members, said Reuters.

Even though Byju’s denied board exists initially, late on Friday it confirmed in a statement 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 leadership was heightening employee concerns.

Since October 2022, Byju’s had laid off thousands of employees to cut costs amid a drop in demand for online tutoring drop following the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. Two of the employees that spoke to Reuters said performance incentives, bonuses and appraisals had stalled amid the turmoil.