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Good morning. Hope you all had a lovely weekend but most importantly hope you remembered wishing your fathers a very happy Father’s Day

If you forgot this year around, so use this opportunity to set a reminder for next year

It comes around every year…

- Ruchrngd Sharma & Shatakshi Sharma  

🧵 In today’s issue:

• 📊 Markets recap

• 💳️ What’s going on at Paytm?

• 🔨 Skills gap

• 🗞️ Bite-sized summaries

  • Startup blues

  • AWS to back APJ

  • Pizza coming to a neighbourhood near you

• 🧑‍🍳 What else is cookin’? (quick links)

• 🍿 Entertainment, Entertainment, Entertainment

📊 Markets

🇮🇳 India

• Benchmark indices rose for the third session on Friday, with the BSE Sensex and Nifty50 hitting new highs, driven by stocks like M&M, Titan, and HDFC Bank. Broader markets also reached new peaks, and sectors including Auto, Realty, and Metal saw significant gains.

🌍️ International

• On Friday, the Nasdaq hit its fifth record-high due to rallying tech stocks like Adobe. However, the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones ended their record streaks. Tech shares led the session amidst inflation and interest rate concerns, while small-caps and industrials lagged.

💳️ What’s going on at Paytm?

Last week, we reported that Paytm was going through a green period in the stock market, marked by the 25% rally after they announced their partnership with Samsung. 

But is there more to their story?

• In the wake of the RBI's decision to terminate Paytm Payments Bank and the wallet business, numerous Paytm employees were asked to "voluntarily resign" without prior notice last week. 

• Many allege they are being denied severance pay and instructed to repay joining and retention bonuses, despite no formal communication from the company about the restructuring process.

• One employee said, "I started crying at the meeting. I told them I would work even at a lower salary and designation." Another claimed their offer letter lacked termination clauses mandating repayment of bonuses.

So what’s happening? 

• Paytm has refuted these allegations, stating employees were informed through official channels only, and transitions are undertaken per appointment letter norms. 

• The company claims to honour full notice periods, extend outplacement support, and process due bonuses during final settlements.

• However, some terminated employees say Paytm did not provide experience letters. While many resigned voluntarily fearing termination notices, others are waging a silent battle. 

• They have declined to resign, raised concerns with Paytm's escalation team, and joined social media groups to determine the next steps. 

• So far, at least one complaint has been lodged with the labour ministry.

Overall: This isn't ideal from a public relations perspective. In the current economy, voluntary resignations could become as significant an issue as the "silent resignations" during the COVID-19 pandemic. If not handled correctly, this could severely damage an organization's reputation.

Plus, as Paytm reports increasing losses following the RBI ban, affected employees are hoping for a fair exit process during the restructuring.

Read more: Economic Times

🔨 Skills gap

Amidst a significant slowdown in the IT sector, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is grappling with a skills gap, leaving 80,000 job positions unfilled, with the company relying on contractors to fill these roles due to a mismatch between the skills of current employees and the requirements of the available positions.

Here’s what’s happening: 

• The struggles faced by TCS are reflective of the broader challenges plaguing the Indian IT industry. 

• Major players like Infosys, Wipro, and TCS have been deferring the onboarding of freshers, leaving over 10,000 candidates in limbo over the past two years, according to the Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES).

And it isn’t just TCS going through these pains:

• Infosys, for instance, hired only 11,900 campus recruits in the financial year 2023-24, a staggering 76% decrease from the previous year's 50,000 hires. 

• Wipro has also failed to honour campus offers made two years ago, citing the need to prioritize pending offers before hiring new freshers.

Overall: The delay in onboarding is primarily attributed to business uncertainty in key markets like North America and Europe, where clients are cautious about IT spending amid signs of an economic slowdown. 

This comes at a time when the Indian government is reportedly seeking collaboration with IT giants to develop software for quantum technologies under the National Quantum Mission.

As the IT sector grapples with these challenges, companies focus on improving productivity without significantly increasing headcount, resulting in a combined headcount reduction of nearly 64,000 across TCS, Infosys, and Wipro in the financial year 2023-24.

Read more: Hindustan Times

🗞️ Bite-sized summaries

📉 Startup blues - Indian startups have laid off around 10,000 employees so far in 2024 as funding remains constrained across stages, though the pace of layoffs has slowed compared to the second half of 2023 when around 15,000 were fired and the first half of 2023 with 21,000 job cuts. While major startups like Swiggy, Ola, CultFit, Licious, PristynCare and Byju's continue reducing headcounts, around 40-50% of 2024's layoffs have been "silent" with no announcements as firms replace higher-paid staff with lower-cost hires. However, early signs of improvement include an uptick in early-stage funding, public listings providing investor confidence, and sectors like quick commerce and fintech expected to drive some hiring amid an overall recovery still playing out for the startup ecosystem.

💰️ AWS to back APJ - AWS launched a new program called the AWS Generative AI Spotlight to support up to 120 early-stage startups building generative AI applications across the Asia Pacific and Japan region, including 40 from India where it is partnering with venture capital firm Accel. The four-week accelerator program will provide participating startups with access to AWS credits, mentorship, and education to further their use of AI and ML technologies. Additionally, AWS has committed $230 million to accelerate generative AI startup growth worldwide, with a major portion funding a 10-week Generative AI Accelerator program offering hands-on expertise, up to $1 million in AWS credits, and mentorship to the top 80 early-stage companies.

🍕 Pizza coming to a neighbourhood near you - Jubilant FoodWorks plans to double the count of Domino's Pizza stores in India from the current 2,000 to 4,000 in the medium term of around 5-6 years, making India the first market outside the US to cross this milestone. The company remains bullish on both dine-in and delivery segments and will invest around Rs 250 crore annually to add around 200 new stores each year while ramping up backend commissary investments. Despite some near-term demand headwinds, Jubilant expects the strong GDP growth in India to aid recovery and is focusing on sharper value offerings, and faster deliveries with two-thirds under 20 minutes, while closely monitoring commodity costs like milk and vegetable prices amidst inflationary pressures.

🧑‍🍳 What else is cookin’?

What’s happening in India (and around the world 🌍️)

• TCS fined ₹1,600 Cr by the US court on complaint of this US-based company, here's the company's BSE filing.

• Indian corporates are likely to go slow on overseas dollar loans.

• Elon Musk's X demands repayment from former Australian employees over pay error.

• IPO-bound Swiggy relaunches Handpicked as a new quick commerce category.

• India in talks with Norway’s Equinor for oil reserves.

• Hyundai files for IPO to raise $3B that could be India’s biggest.

🍿 Entertainment, Entertainment, Entertainment

• T20 World Cup:

  • Afghanistan beat Papua New Guinea by 7 wickets.

  • South Africa beat Nepal by 1 run.

  • New Zealand beat Uganda by 9 wickets.

  • England beat Namibia by 41 runs.

  • Australia beat Scotland by 5 wickets.

  • Pakistan beat Ireland by 3 wickets.

• Euros 2024:

  • Germany 5-1 Scotland

  • Switzerland 3-1 Hungary

  • Spain 3-0 Croatia

  • Italy 2-1 Albania

  • Netherlands 2-1 Poland

  • Denmark 1-1 Slovenia

  • England 1-0 Serbia

• Princess of Wales makes first appearance since cancer diagnosis.