At 7:10 pm on 26 July, Kolkata resident Akansha Khemka, a biology tutor at the troubled edtech firm Byju’s, joined a meeting link emailed by the human resources (HR) department earlier in the day. The subject line was blank. As she entered the meeting room, she was asked by a company representative to quit. Her 1.5 years of service, during which she received three awards, ended abruptly. 

“They asked me to put in my resignation. When I resisted, they said that if I didn’t, they would sack me, and I would face a lot of problems in getting my dues. For resignation, they promised the salary for July by the first of next month and an extra month’s salary within 45 days,” Khemka told The Ken.

She resigned immediately after the call. Then, she recorded a video and put it up on Linkedin. Currently, she is on “garden leaveGarden LeaveGarden leave is a transition period for employees who give or are given notice of termination, keeping them on the payroll but away from the workplace”. Her notice period will be 1-25 August. The videoMoneycontrol Byju's employee shares tearful video in which Khemka shared her ordeal had gone viral before Linkedin took it down.

Khemka, who claims to be the sole breadwinner in her family, said she was even ready for a part-time position or to transition to another team as jobs for tutors are hard to come by. 

Ever since schools reopened post-pandemic, the edtech sector has been suffering—especially with thousands of layoffs. To add to the woes, governance issues at Byju’s have put the company under the microscope in the past few months. Yet, employees want to hang on.

Currently, the job market has a talent pool of over 24,000 active and accessible people from Think and Learn Pvt. Ltd, the parent company of Byju’s, according to Prasadh MS, head of workforce research at staffing firm Xpheno. 

“The last two weeks alone have seen an addition of 3,000 Byju’s employees to the active-job-seekers count,” he added.