look news india
The dreadful phase of layoffs in the global tech world is not stopping. A heart-wrenching example of how international companies are treating Indian software engineers mercilessly, who were once hired with dreams of packages worth lakhs, onsite posting and huge salaries in US dollars, has come to light on social media. The social media post of a senior Indian tech professional working in a leading US-based tech and software company is becoming increasingly viral on the internet these days. The post revealed that the company management suddenly called a 5-minute virtual meeting in the morning without any prior notice or email and in the same call, the entire Indian core engineering team was laid off in one fell swoop. As soon as this incident went viral, a heated debate broke out all around regarding the inhuman behavior of the corporate world.
The affected tech professional shared his pain on professional networking platforms (LinkedIn and Reddit) and wrote that the team had been working day and night on a major product rollout for the past several months. To meet the project deadline, Indian developers were working till late night according to the American time zone.
According to the post:
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In the morning suddenly a brief 5 minute meeting was scheduled on the calendar, titled simply ‘Quick Update’.
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As soon as all the Indian engineers joined the call, a senior official from US management and an HR representative started speaking directly.
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A prepared script, without any introduction or empathy, read: “Due to global restructuring and cost cutting, the roles of your entire team are being eliminated with immediate effect.”
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The employees were not given any opportunity to express their views or ask questions.
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The call was disconnected exactly as soon as the 5 minutes were up, and within the next 60 seconds, all employees’ system access to Slack, GitHub, official email, and office laptops were cut off.
This viral post has rubbed salt into the wounds of Indian corporate professionals. On social media, users are expressing their anger over the double standards of American and multinational companies.
Users have raised many serious questions in the comment box:
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US vs India Work Culture: When companies have to work 16-hour days at low cost, they set up offshore teams in India, but when they have to show profits to shareholders in the financial reports, the Indian teams are the first to be cut.
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Abrupt system logout insult: In return for years of loyalty and hard work, employees were not even given time to send farewell or goodbye messages to their colleagues. It was described as the cruelest face of modern slavery and the corporate world.
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EMI and crisis of dependent families: These developers living in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Noida and Gurugram have huge expenses on home loan, children’s school fees and medicines of elderly parents, which came down to zero in one stroke.
In the era of rapid adoption of Artificial Intelligence (Generative AI) tools and global economic slowdown, IT companies are now working on the model of ‘Lean Team’ (team with fewer employees).
Industry analysts believe that global venture capitalists and investors are putting immense pressure on companies to reduce operating costs. Coding and basic development work is now increasingly being done through AI tools, due to which entire mid-level and backend support teams are being declared redundant overnight. Due to local political pressure in America, many companies are pretending to limit foreign and offshoring outsourcing.
After this heart-wrenching incident, career counselors and senior tech leaders have reminded Indian youth of a big lesson:
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Love the Company, Not the Brand: No employee is indispensable for any corporate company. The company only looks at the balance sheet, so never overwork at the cost of your health, family and mental peace.
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Creation of emergency fund: Every working youth should always have an emergency fund ready in liquid form equal to at least 6 to 9 months of mandatory expenses (EMI, ration, rent).
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Continuous Upskilling and Networking: Instead of relying solely on company internal tools, constantly keep yourself updated on new AI architectures, cloud computing and open-source platforms, and keep your professional network active.