The open source developer platform GitHub, which is owned by Microsoft, has laid off its entire engineering team in India, making it the latest tech company to fire employees. According to reports, the layoffs, which were not based on performance, affected over 140 employees.
As a severance package, the affected employees were given two months’ pay. Furthermore, they were forced to sign a strict non-disclosure agreement.
A GitHub spokesperson confirmed the development with Inc42 in a statement. “Workforce reductions were made today as part of difficult but necessary decisions and realignments to both protect the health of our business in the short term and grant us the capacity to invest in our long-term strategy moving forward, as part of the reorganisation plan shared in February.” This is part of the previously announced plan for February 9th; please see that statement for more information,” a GitHub spokesperson told Inc42.
The Microsoft-owned company announced in February that it would lay off 10% of its workforce and go completely remote, closing all of its physical offices. In January, it also announced a hiring freeze as part of a cost-cutting exercise.
GitHub was founded in 2008 by Chris Wanstrath, PJ Hyett, Tom Preston-Werner, and Scott Chacon. Microsoft paid INR $7.5 billion for GitHub in 2018. The Microsoft-owned company announced in February that it would lay off 10% of its workforce and go completely remote, closing all of its physical offices. In January, it also announced a hiring freeze as part of a cost-cutting exercise.
GitHub was founded in 2008 by Chris Wanstrath, PJ Hyett, Tom Preston-Werner, and Scott Chacon. Microsoft acquired GitHub in 2018 for INR $7.5 Bn.
Microsoft announced earlier this year that it would lay off 10,000 employees, or about 5% of its global workforce. As part of this, the tech behemoth laid off workers at its India Development Centres, or R&D divisions, in Hyderabad and Bengaluru.
Other global behemoths, including Meta, Amazon, Salesforce, and IT firm Accenture, have announced layoffs in recent months.
