Online coding platform WhiteHat Jr, owned by BYJU'S, lays off 300 employees

WhiteHat Jr, the online coding provider, the same platform that is under BYJU'S, has given the pink slip to about 300 employees. This comes after over 1,000 employees had already resigned when they were asked to return to the office in April-May.  

This time around, most of the employees who have been fired belong to the code-teaching and sales teams of the platform, some of them even worked in Brazil, stated a report by IANS.

In a statement, the company said that "to realign with our business priorities, we are optimising our team to accelerate results and best position the business for long-term growth".

The reopening of educational institutions, including physical tuition centres, and the global microeconomic conditions have put the EdTech sector in a difficult place.

It may be recalled that BYJU's had acquired WhiteHat Jr in July 2020 for nearly $300 million.

In the financial year 2021, it reported a loss of Rs 1,690 crore. When it comes to its expenses, it reached Rs 2,175 crore in FY21 as opposed to Rs 69.7 crore in FY20.

Out of the workforce of 5,000, which includes teachers who are on a contractual basis, about 1,000 of them resigned in April-May.

Additionally, WhiteHat Jr also had to shut its schools' division, via which, it wanted to take its flagship coding curriculum to 10 lakh school students by the next academic year onwards.

No results came out of the EdTech's attempt to teach music online, offering guitar and piano playing sessions.  

As a part of their severance, the company offered one month's salary to the employees who were laid off.

BYJU's on Tuesday, June 28, named Krishna Vedati as President of Global Growth and Strategic Initiatives, along with rejigging top leadership at K-12 creative coding platform Tynker (which it acquired for $200 million) as part of its US expansion.

Vedati, Co-Founder and CEO of Tynker, will report to BYJU's Co-Founder and CEO Byju Raveendran.

The EdTech unicorn made at least 10 acquisitions for a cumulative transaction value of about $2.5 billion last year.