Reliance to axe 3,000 jobs? Realignment of pay packages also under consideration?

August 27th, 2008 · 4 Comments

Reliance Retail, among the largest retailers of India, according to an FE report, is believed to be considering to axe 3,000 of the 20,000-odd jobs, or around 15% of its employee strength, over the next few months.

This move, though denied by the group, comes just two years after it began rolling out retail chains in November, 2006, from Hyderabad. The retail chain, which currently operates through 11 verticles, has unveiled 650-odd stores, since inception. Most of these stores are part of its flagship, food & grocery, convenience chain Reliance ‘Fresh.’

The ‘rightsizing’ exercise of the company will mostly affect IT and contractual personell working with the retail outfit. In fact, IT personnel could account for 1,000 of the 3,000 personnel who may are being considered for handing over the ‘pink’ slip by the company.

The company is also looking at rationalising pay packages in tune with other group companies, says the report. It may be recalled that during initial euphoria surrounding the retail sector, Reliance had offered hefty compensation packages to people from relevant and related disciplines.

Tags: Mukesh Ambani (Reliance) · HR/ Employment

4 responses so far ↓

jackson // Aug 30, 2008 at 11:01 pm

It’s astonishing to read that the companies like Reliance can AXE 3,000 employees. I feel they should not have hired so many people so that such situation should arise. I feel they should throw the top guns instead of low profile employees so as to cut on their costs.
Manjo // Sep 3, 2008 at 2:31 pm

Get rid of top guys and Reliance would save 15 crores/yearly. These guys have no clue what retail business is all about and the business model is greatly flawed.
None of the top guns have a single day of experience in retailing except for Raghu Pillai, who has spent a few years in retail, despite that they were hired for the top positions and paid hugely and that backfired.
Dilip Shende // Sep 3, 2008 at 2:52 pm

At one time there were 50 “goras” each drawing over a crore/yearly to say the least and none of them had the slightest clue about Indian consumers/shopping behaviour/purchasing patterns etc. they just tried to do a cut copy paste of what happens in the west, an ideal recepe for failure. Indeed common sense is very uncommon in common man.
Stranger // Sep 15, 2008 at 3:48 pm

Its very wrong of reliance to hire so many people, if they are not capable of giving salaries. All low profile well educated freshers (BE, MCA, MSc,MBA etc) have suffered and lost their careers as there are no jobs in Market. Who is responsible in this?