Careem laid off 150 employees

Karachi: A week after Uber completed its acquisition of online ride-booking company Careem for $3.10 billion, Careem’s Dubai headquarters fired 150 employees.

In an email sent by Careem Chief Executive Officer Mudassar Sheikha to his employees last week, the move was made to align with the technology company’s Super App philosophy.

In December alone, more than 60 people left the company, with the largest number of workers from Dubai, while the number of Pakistani workers was very small.

Due to the financial crisis, Careem was also forced to exit from Oman and Turkey, where the regulatory environment was not favorable according to the company.

According to LinkedIn, Careem has 3,500 employees, of which 1,100 work in offices in Pakistan.

“The change means that some of our colleagues have had their roles changed or expanded, and others will leave us today because their roles no longer exist,” the email said.

Explaining the reasons for these decisions, the company’s chief executive said, ‘Like many technology companies at our growth stage, Careem is facing 2 new realities.

The first reality is the implications of expanding our vision from a regional ride-booking operator to a multi-faceted super app platform in terms of how we allocate our resources and manage ourselves.

Second, our new investors, the public markets, expect companies like ours to become profitable after nearly a decade of high growth rates.

In a post on LinkedIn 2 weeks ago, Karim’s Chief Finance and Strategy Officer also announced his resignation.

Even at the lower levels of these top positions, there was some upheaval as several employees were posted to different places.

Sources said that ‘before the deal with Uber was completed, some colleagues in Pakistan were posted to various locations internally and externally’.

Since its inception, Careem, like its parent company Uber, has run at a loss to fuel its growth in new territories.

However, it paid a heavy price as according to reports, the company spent around $75 million to maintain and expand its presence in Pakistan alone, the company’s largest market in terms of Pakistan Rides.

Now that profitability has become more difficult, Careem also faces competition from new entrants into the transportation sector, including Airlift and Egypt’s Civil.