Indian cryptocurrency exchange CoinSwitch laid off 44 employees, about 7% of its total headcount, from its customer support team. The team still has about 82 members. The layoff took place about three weeks ago but came to light only recently, media reports said.
Since April, CoinSwtich recruited about 60 people, mostly in product tech and compliance. Before the layoff, the crypto trading platform had 640 employees.
A news report in Money Control quoted CoinSwtich’s spokesman saying customer queries have reduced significantly with plunging trading volumes, creating redundancy in the customer care department.
“We continuously evaluate our business to stay competitive, prioritizing innovation, value, and customer service. To that end, we right-sized our customer support team to align with the present volume of customer queries on our platform. This impacted the roles of 44 members of our customer support team, who voluntarily resigned from their roles after a detailed discussion with their managers earlier this month,” the CoinSwitch Spokesperson said to Money Control.
Due to heavy taxes introduced in February 2022, trading volume dropped over 90% for most Indian crypto exchanges. Earlier this month, CoinSwitch laid off 71 employees, about 12% of its total workforce.
“Over the last year, many support team members have been absorbed into other functions based on the suitability of their skills for the other roles. We are extending all our support to the impacted employees. As and when volume grows and we open new roles, we will be happy to welcome back those impacted,” the spokesman added.
