Food delivery company Zomato on Friday said that it will lay off 13% of its employees and implement salary cuts of up to 50% across the organisation for at least six months, starting June, due to the economic challenges caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Zomato founder and Chief Executive Officer Deepinder Goyal said the company had to prepare for the worst, adding that multiple aspects of the business have changed dramatically over the last couple of months and many of these changes are expected to be permanent.

“While we continue to build a more focused Zomato, we do not foresee having enough work for all our employees,” Goyal said in an email shared with the employees. “We owe all our colleagues a challenging work environment, but we won’t be able to offer that to 13% of our workforce going forward.”

He added that those who lost their jobs will continue to get 50% salary for a six-month period.

Goyal said Chief Operating Officer Gaurav Gupta and CEO of food delivery business Mohit Gupta will be in touch with the affected staff through video calls over the next few days. “We are going to assure them that we stand by them and will financially and emotionally support them to the fullest possible extent,” Goyal added. “For everyone who is impacted – you will get invites for a zoom call with the leadership team within the next 24 hours. These invites will be sent to you via email and Dingtalk. For everyone who is not impacted – an email from hr@zomato.com in the next 6 hours should tell you that your jobs are here to stay.”

From June onwards, Goyal said the company has also proposed a temporary reduction in salary for the entire organisation. “Lower cuts are being proposed for people with lower salaries, and higher cuts [up to 50%] for people with higher salaries,” he added.

The Zomato founder said despite the pay cuts the company will continue to be short of its salary reduction target. “So many people have volunteered for a 100% pay cut for at least six months – that is something I wouldn’t expect to happen at many other companies,” he told employees. The pay cut will not apply to employees who have already taken a voluntary cut equal to or higher than the proposed temporary reduction.

Zomato’s business has been severely affected by the coronavirus-induced lockdown as a large number of restaurants have already shut down permanently, Goyal said. “I expect the number of restaurants to shrink by 25-40% over the next 6-12 months,” he told the staff. “What actually happens, for better or worse, is anybody’s guess.”

Goyal also announced plans to make partial or full-time work from home a permanent thing.

Last week, Uber Technologies Inc said it will cut about 3,700 full-time jobs and Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi will forgo his base salary for the remainder of the year due to lack of work.

The number of coronavirus cases in India rose to 81,970 on Friday morning and the toll went up to 2,649. The country recorded 3,967 cases and 100 deaths in the last 24 hours.