Verizon Data Services India (VDS), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the American company Verizon Communications, has reportedly laid off over 1,000 employees as the company started rationalising its staff at its India units in Chennai and Hyderabad. The office bearers of the Forum of IT Employees, a union of the employees in the IT sector, alleged "forced resignations" and urged labour commissioner to intervene in the matter.
"As Verizon consolidates its strategy so we can scale, compete and continue to be successful, Verizon's IT, including Verizon Data Services India, is transforming into an engineering-centric, technology organisation. The transformation entails rationalisation of roles which has an impact on headcount," the company said in a statement.
VDS India has not shared any details of how many workers were impacted but it said that they were doing role rationalisation not to meet a specific number but to match the talent with the requirements of the business for its future, the Times of India reported.
However, according to a Facebook post by Forum of IT Employees (FITE), Verizon Data Services India has laid off more than 1,000 employees across India. The FITE claims that they are receiving many calls from Verizon employees from across India for help.
According to the IT Union in India, VDS will be laying off 993 of its employees across India.
"We have come to know that VDS India has targeted to retrench 993 of its employees in band 7 to band 3 through forced resignation," said the union's convenor, Alagunambi Welkin.
Further, the union also issued a statement in which it requested the Labour Commissioner to intervene and stop the company to let go off so many employees and also to restore all the workers with due benefits and service.
The union also claimed that the employees who fall under the senior managers' band at the Olympia Tech par office were escorted out of their cabins by security without any prior notification on Tuesday.
Reports suggest that industry experts had forecast layoffs at Verizon since its merger with AOL and Yahoo earlier this year. About 15 percent of the employees of the merged entity were expected to be affected globally.
However, it is not clear as to which employee roles have been affected in India. As of November, about 2,600 employees have been affected by Verizon layoffs globally.
VDS India has around 7,000 employees in India spread across Chennai and Hyderabad. It focuses on application development and support to enable operating support systems (OSS) and business support system (BSS) and customer operations.
