India’s online education platform, Byju’s, has laid off over 2,500 employees from WhiteHat Junior, Toppr, and its core team across sales and marketing, operations, content and design. According to an Indian media report, unicorn edtech is trying to cut costs as the demand for edtech services decreases after two consecutive years of hypergrowth.

Around 1200 employees from Toppr alone have been laid off, including 300-350 permanent employees. Over 300 employees were told to apply for resignation or they would not get salaries for around 1-1.5 months. Moreover, around 600 contract-based employees have also been laid off even though their contracts were scheduled to end around October or November.

However, a spokesperson from Byju’s has refused these reports by saying, “We strongly deny the misinformation. To recalibrate our business priorities and accelerate our long-term growth, we are optimizing our teams from our group companies. This entire exercise involves less than 500 employees from across Byju’s Group companies. “