900 employees of US-based company fired over Zoom call

Bhubaneswar: During a Zoom call US-based mortgage company Better.com CEO Vishal Garg has fired 900 of its employees.

Citing market efficiency, performance and productivity as the reasons behind the mass lay-off, the Indian-American CEO said the employment of the 900 employees have been terminated with immediate effect.

One of the fired workers filmed the three-minute video call and leaked it on social media.

According to CNN, Vishal Garg, 43, told the company’s employees during the Zoom call, “This isn’t news that you’re going to want to hear…If you’re on this call, you are part of the unlucky group that is being laid off. Your employment here is terminated effective immediately.”

“This is the second time in my career I’m doing this and I do not do not want to do this. The last time I did it, I cried. This time, I hope to be stronger,” he said. “We are laying off about 15% of the company for a number of reasons – the market, efficiency and performances and productivity.”

A Better.com spokesman later corrected the 15 per cent figure and said the actual number was closer to 9 per cent of the total workforce.

“You guys know that at least 250 of the people terminated were working an average of 2 hours a day while clocking 8 hours+ a day in the payroll system?” he wrote in a blog post on the network Blind. “They were stealing from you and stealing from our customers who pay the bills that pay our bills,” he added.

Earlier, Vishal Garg was criticised for an email that he sent staff members. “You are TOO DAMN SLOW. You are a bunch of DUMB DOLPHINS… SO STOP IT. STOP IT. STOP IT RIGHT NOW. YOU ARE EMBARRASSING ME,” Garg had written in the email, a copy of which was in possession of Forbes.

Here’s the video of Vishal Garg’s Zoom call meeting: