Retrenchment of more than 1 thousand employees from Jiomart: Now more employees will be laid off

JioMart, the online wholesale platform of Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries, has laid off more than 1,000 employees. The layoffs came after Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd recently acquired food wholesaler Metro Cash & Carry.
According to media reports, Geomart will lay off more employees from its workforce of over 15,000 employees in the next few weeks. Through this, Reliance Industries wants to reduce about two-thirds of the employees from the wholesale division.
According to The Economic Times, JioMart has asked over 1,000 employees, including 500 executives, from its corporate office to submit the designs. Along with this, the company has placed more than 100 employees on the Performance Improvement Plan (PIP). Apart from this, along with reducing the fixed pay salary of other sales employees, they have been kept on a variable pay structure.
Why is Geomart laying off employees? According to media reports, after the acquisition of Metro Cash & Carry, the company added 3,500 employees to its workplace, due to which the roles of the employees have overlapped. With this, Geomart, which started the price war in the grocery B2B space, is now looking to improve margins and reduce losses.
Two months back, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) approved the acquisition of food wholesaler Metro Cash and Carry India by Reliance Retail Ventures Limited (RRVL). RRVL and Metro Cash and Carry India signed the agreement in December 2022. This deal has been done for Rs 2,850 crore. Metro is a German company that started its operations in India in 2003 and introduced a cash-and-carry business format.
Geomart is also planning to shut down more than half of its 150-plus fulfillment centers, which supply groceries and general goods to its nearby stores.