Furlenco lays off 180 employees, shuts operations in some cities: Report

Furniture and lifestyle rental brand Furlenco has recently laid off some 180 to 200 employees as the company is scaling down its operation across various parts of the country like Pune, Kolkata and Ahmedabad, according to The Economic Times report.

“The company has suspended operations across Kolkata, and other cities…these were places it was looking to aggressively scale earlier…They have laid off close to 200-220 employees this year..,” a source aware of the developments told the publication.

Meanwhile, Furlenco has outsourced functions such as – asset management including repair and maintenance and asset collection for returns.

“What is surprising is that the company was ramping up its hiring last year and then suddenly decided to retrench employees…This has caused uncertainty in the company. The current employees were informed of the layoffs in a town hall by the top management,” another source told the publication on condition of anonymity.

Furlenco has also confirmed the development. After the retrenchment, the company currently has 350 employees.

According to Furlenco, it has only temporarily suspended its operations in Kolkata, Mysuru, Chandigarh, and Jaipur as it aims for a leasing model for its warehouses to save costs.

“The decision is a part of a larger cost restructuring exercise to focus on creating an asset-light model. We hired close to 200 people last year, with almost 150 of them being across customer engagement functions. Another 35 members were added to technology functions. These hirings were made to cater towards increased customer demand,” Ajith Karimpana, founder and chief executive officer of Furlenco, told the publication.

“With technology automating most of the customer-facing functions now, we had to let go of these employees, since their roles had become redundant,” Karimpana added.

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