Daraz Bangladesh to slash its team by 5%

As part of the group level decision of slashing 11% employees, Daraz Bangladesh has planned to downsize its 1,200-permanent member team by nearly 5%, confirmed company sources.

Several positions were already vacant for a few months and there may be around 40-50 job cuts, said a company official, seeking anonymity.

The leading online marketplace of the country is ready to pay the laid off employees additional amounts, said sources.

On Monday, Bjarke Mikkelsen, CEO of Daraz Group that operates in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal, announced that the company is going to "say goodbye" to 11% of its employees across the region and that the decision has been taken "to prepare the company for the current market reality and to ensure that Daraz will thrive in the long term to achieve our vision".

"For the last five years, we have been following our long-term business plan and increased our active shoppers from three million in 2018 to more than 15 million today, with an average order growth of almost 100% until last year," he said in a statement.

The company, growing strong during the pandemic, recently has been facing an extremely difficult business environment due to a war in Europe, huge supply chain disruptions, soaring inflation, increasing taxes and removal of essential government subsidies in its markets.

He said, "Despite these headwinds, we are still growing our business and we have made big progress on our unit economics in the last 12 months. Unfortunately, it is not enough and we need to do more to adjust the company to the lower growth outlook in the next couple of years. 

"In order to weather the storm, we need to collectively do everything we can to improve profitability and save costs." 

He said, "This includes refocusing on the core business, simplifying the organisation and doing more with less in all departments."