After laying off almost 500 of its employees, Chennai/US-based IT company Freshworks said it is “actively hiring”. According to the company’s website, it is hiring for several senior roles globally, including positions in its Bengaluru and Chennai offices.

Businessline had previously reported that the company’s CEO and President, Dennis Woodside, said in an email to employees that the global workforce reduction would impact 660 employees.

The IT firm said the decision to lay off its people impacted less than 500 people, approximately 12% of its India workforce. “This decision impacted approximately 16 per cent of employees in the US. The evaluation and consultation process is commencing in Europe, Australia, and other parts of the world,” the company said in a statement.

Changes in strategy

“We made some changes in our strategy to focus broadly on three areas - EX, AI, and CX. To focus on these areas, we had to make some difficult decisions, which meant we had to let go of a few people. The overall impact was about 13% of our workforce,” Shelton Rego, Vice President and Managing Director, Freshworks India, t told Businessline.

He added that the company, which had traditionally operated in the SMB space, is strategically shifting its focus to the enterprises.

“We have done that for a while now and in India, we have a ton of enterprise customers. We want to shift our focus from what we have done traditionally to conglomerates and institutions in India. This also involves working closely with unicorns,” Shelton added.

As per Freshworks, all of its product and engineering talent is in India, which is also the company’s R&D hub, spread across Chennai, Bengaluruand Hyderabad.

Earlier this year, the company recently acquired the US-based startup, Device42 for $230 million. This was the first acquisition Freshworks made after its IPO in September 2021.

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