Huawei India announces job cut, brings its workforce down by 30%

In the wake of the current consolidation in the telecom industry, while also the Vodafone-Idea merger and sector-wide financial stress, Huawei Technologies has brought down its direct workforce in India by almost a third.

The economic stress caused in the sector after the disruption caused by billionaire Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio's entry, and the amalgamation between Vodafone and Idea have proved to be a double setback for the network vendor's workforce.

A company source said, on the condition of anonymity said, that there has been a job cut since early this year with nearly 30% of the employees having now gone out of the company, while some of them who were in the field teams have been rehired on a contractual basis. The employees were asked to leave on the basis of performance, network shutdowns and declining telco business, the source added.

After the job cut, the company now has a workforce of more than 8,000 individuals spread across sales, supply chain, R&D and network engineering functions, and is among the main vendors for Vodafone and Idea to whom it offers managed services and network-related operations services.

The Chinese firm, in 2015, had bagged multiple 4G network rollout deals from Vodafone India and Idea Cellular for various circles. In March this year, the boards of Idea Cellular and Vodafone India have approved their business combination in a $23-billion deal.

It is noteworthy here that over 75,000 people are estimated to have lost their jobs in the telecom sector due to the financial stress of carriers which has triggered rapid consolidation.

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