Heaptalk, Jakarta — Last week, Shopee announced a shocking statement by performing mass layoff as a result of the global economic recession. Taking a different path with Shopee, Grab delivered that the startup has applied several strategies to dodge the measure.
As cited in Reuters (26/09), Chief Operating Officer of Grab, Alex Hungate delivered that Grab is worried about the global recession. For this reason, Grab is strongly selective to hire employees at any level”.
Alex mentioned that the Singapore-based ride-hailing startup focused on hiring employees in several fields, spanning data science, tech mapping, and other specific fields.
“Although recruitment is a much bigger decision than the previous one. To ensure that we save capital, the challenges in the hiring process obviously increase,” Alex said in a statement.
In addition, Grab has eased its ambitions in the finance technology sector to be more focused on other lucrative areas. Grab also diversify its business through lending products and insurance to SMEs with high transaction.
Alex also stated that the company had performed special reorganization for 6 months in response to the global condition. By implementing these tracks, Grab enables itself to avoid ‘hopeless’ and cut off its employee’s contracts.
The company listed on Nasdaq last December had 8,800 employees last year. This superapp experienced high demand during the pandemic, particularly in its food delivery service. However, the trend has dropped along with the end of the pandemic despite the fact that the demand for its ride-hailing service keeps soaring.
Grab has cut its loss from US$801 million to US$572 million year on year in the last second quarter. However, the decacorn company slashes the outlook for gross merchandise volume this year in August in case of dollar reinforcement and low demand for food delivery.
In response to the current condition, Grab also shut dozens of its food distribution centers while postponing the launch of the cloud kitchen. This condition leads Grab’s valuation to tumble from US$40 billion to US$10.59 billion today.
