The job market currently has over 6,500 active and accessible professionals from Paytm and another 7,000 from Byju’s, showed data from popular job boards and portals put together for ET by specialist staffing firm Xpheno.
India’s most valued startup less than two years ago with a valuation of $22 billion, Byju’s suffered a nasty fall from grace over the past year or so, facing multiple crises from cash crunch to legal battles to valuation markdowns to now investor demand for a leadership change.
On top of all that, frequent layoffs and salary delays have led to a rise in employees looking to exit the edtech.
For Paytm, troubles hit the roof on January 31 when the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) ordered Paytm Payments Bank to stop all forms of banking services within a month. On Monday, RBI governor Shaktikanta Das ruled out any immediate review of the curbs imposed.
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All these have had an impact on employee morale in both companies.
“Byju’s went from a purple patch to an existential crisis. Paytm revolutionised digital payments in India, now they are uncertain about what the future holds. It’s no surprise that employees are frantically searching (for jobs elsewhere),” said a recruiter who requested not to be identified.
The active count of job-seeking talent from Paytm was in the 800-1,200 range two months ago, but the last two weeks alone have seen an addition of nearly 5,000 employees to the active jobseekers count, Xpheno data showed. Over 70% of the total active jobseekers’ pool in Paytm has gotten active in the last 10 days.
At Byju’s, the number of active jobseekers has shot up from 2,000-3,000 levels two months ago. The last two weeks have seen an addition of 5,000 employees to those looking to jump ship, data showed.
Tough going
Amid a hiring slowdown in the startup ecosystem, the going isn’t likely to be easy for jobseekers despite many of them being willing to take substantial salary cuts, recruiters said.
“The current job market, with sustained headwinds and macroeconomic uncertainties, is clearly tough for job-seeking lateral and fresher talent alike,” said Prasadh M S, head of workforce research at Xpheno. “Margin pressures have pushed enterprises to kick in austerity measures and talent action is set to remain conservative for a couple of more quarters,” he added.
Hiring demand from tech and non-tech startups has been in a low-to-no range for over five quarters now, and edtech and fintech ventures are no exception, Prasadh said. Challenges related to funding, governance and product relevance have further intensified the challenges for bellwethers in these two sectors, he added.
The CEO of an edtech firm who did not want to be named said the company had been flooded with resumes, many of them from Byju’s. “But we are being very watchful of costs,” the person said. “Companies are under pressure to show profitability.”
In response to an ET query, Paytm said its leadership is committed to empowering its employees. “As a standard practice, we have an internal job portal where employees can look for opportunities within the Paytm ecosystem,” a company spokesperson said. “While employees at any organisation have the right to pursue their career goals, we are all working stronger day and night to drive our larger goal of financial inclusion. Our appraisal cycles also stand unimpacted due to the directives on our associate bank.”
Byju’s did not respond to queries as of press time Tuesday.
According to the Xpheno data, more than three-fourths of Byju’s and Paytm employees looking out are in the Rs 5-10 lakh salary bracket. Employees with less than four years of experience account for nearly 65% of the accessible talent pool at Byju’s and about 42% at Paytm.