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After reports of firing over 1K+ employees in 2022, edtech giant Unacademy now has suspended the contracts of its NEET and JEE doubt-solving educators for six months as a part of its cost cutting strategy. 

According to an email seen by Moneycontrol, Unacademy terminated the contracts on July 31 with no notice period. The number of contractors affected by the move is unknown.

On Sunday (July 31), both sets of educators (IIT-JEE and NEET) got emails regarding the termination of their services for a minimum period of six months – that is, Unacademy will neither use their services nor pay these educators during the six months.

The report adds that a six-month suspension is equivalent to being removed from the Unacademy programme. To these educators, Unacademy quoted that it will be making some strategic changes which will reduce the need for a doubt-solving platform. 

“Thus, we have decided to temporarily suspend all deliverables related to doubt solutions as mentioned in your content provider agreement,” the email reads.

The Curious Case Of Unacademy’s Cost Cutting Measures

The move also comes shortly after Unacademy founder Gaurav Munjal made the company’s survival guide public. Munjal had told the Unacademy employees that while the company had $350 Mn+ in the bank, it had been managing its finances inefficiently. He stressed that despite the alarming nature of these measures, the company was in a great state.

Some of the steps it has undertaken to manage its finances now include – exiting the K-12 segment and winding down its US operations within months. The Unacademy leadership also took and revoked several perks and employee benefits. The startup has also halted all sponsorship engagements as it looks to conserve cash across its operations.

Unacademy also joined the offline coaching culture and thus, re-evaluated the need for service providers. So, besides the current canning, Unacademy had also let go of around 200+ YouTube educators and 125+ consultants from the edtech unicorn’s PrepLadder team, citing performance issues.

While it is firing contractors and Unacademy has recently brought on board 40 teachers from Allen for its Kota and other offline centres — where the annual income of these teachers will be in the range of INR 1 Cr – INR 10 Cr.

In FY21, its expenses had shot up significantly to INR 2,029.9 Cr and its employee benefit expenses grew over 6X to INR 748.4 Cr. Salaries and wages accounted for INR 196.3 Cr of the employee benefit expenses. 

Net loss rose 5X to INR 1,537.4 Cr in FY21 and the company’s customer acquisition cost was INR 5.1 in FY21.

And among all these hullabaloo, the edtech unicorn is yet to file its FY22 financials.