Over 300 of Shopee India’s staff in a fix as it checks out

Shopee India will lay off over 300 staff after it decided to shut down operations in the South Asian country. The news came as a shocker to its employees, who were unaware until Monday that the company was wrapping up its business in India, sources told Tech in Asia.

While the ecommerce firm’s India unit had about 300 employees in December 2021, that number has since gone up to 350 workers, an employee told Tech in Asia on condition of anonymity.

In fact, the company had been on course to set up an office in Bengaluru by April, said the employee.

Until now, most of the more than 350 employees were working remotely. Though the company had made a temporary office setup at a co-working space in Bengaluru’s Bellandur locality.

As the company wraps up in India, it will offer severance pay for three months – April, May, and June – to all employees and March salaries will be credited as per usual, said the employee quoted above. The company may also reimburse relocation costs for employees who had come down to Bengaluru from other cities to join Shopee.

The ecommerce arm of internet giant Sea Group said on Monday that it was closing down its operations in India “in view of global market uncertainties.” Its India-specific app has already been removed from Google’s Play store.

Shopee has also offered to absorb some employees in other markets such as the Philippines and Thailand if there is a skill match with Indian staff. However, such a move may not be feasible for several employees.

“I will have to relocate to the Philippines after a few months of working remotely, which I am not in a position to undertake. Hence I will not be considering this offer,” said the employee mentioned above. The person had switched to Shopee from working in an Indian e-commerce company a few months ago “for international exposure and a 35% salary increment.”

The employee said the company had not sent out any feelers regarding the closure of its India business. “Now, in hindsight, I can see that there was a cut down in marketing spend last week, but we did not see this coming,” said the person.

Shopee has also offered help to find new opportunities for employees via its recruitment network.

“During this period of transition, we are focused on supporting our local team, as well as our local seller and buyer communities, to make the process as smooth as possible,” Shopee said in a statement to Tech in Asia.

Reaching out to rivals

Several employees have already started reaching out to contenders such as social commerce firm Meesho and Walmart-backed ecommerce major Flipkart for opportunities.

Meesho, in fact, came up with a Twitter post that may have hinted toward its willingness to hire Shopee’s employees. “Shopee-ing is the simplest, easiest, and fastest with Meesho,” the post read.

The sudden halt