Construction and technology giant Larsen and Toubro (L&T) has laid off almost 14,000 employees over the course of last 3 months across its verticals in engineering, construction and tech. The company calls it a move towards rightsizing and a necessarily fallout of automation and changing technology.
Speaking about the move, SN Subramanya, deputy MD and president tried to assure the press that it “was a normal course of action and should be captured in the right spirit.”
Below is a transcript of an excerpt from his statement.
“We got to look at it linearly to see how to move up the value chain. Certain employees who were relevant for a point of time were not very relevant anymore. Technology is constantly changing. We have put a lot of work into shared services. We have brought in backup offices for a lot of our work. We’re moving a certain amount of automation and lot of our processes into digital. The ideation process has resulted into looking at the business and way of doing things differently {sic} the verticalization . There were certain low performers that we were taking along. But in a competitive world you need to be agile and smart to move forward. “
“And in a 90,ooo employee organization, losing 10,000 employees is not something to bother about.”, he added.
“So let’s not make it a big matter. Many were old. Many were not required anymore. Whole lot of issues were involved.”
Earlier this year, L&T was in news for delaying and even cancelling as many as 1500 offer letters given to fresh campus graduates who went on hunger strikes in protest. The company has reported profits of Rs. 1000 crores in the quarter ended Sept 2016.