Talrop lays off 300+, in Kerala; employees protest salary arrears

Follow TNM's WhatsApp channel for news updates and story links. Employees laid off by Kochi-based ecosystem development company Talrop marched to the company’s head office in Thrikkakara on July 11, 2026, demanding payment of pending salaries. A day earlier, on July 10, the company announced on Instagram that it was laying off more than 300 employees.The Instagram post said, “The AI era demands a complete systemic shift. You either upgrade from the horse carriage to the automobile, or you get left behind. We chose to upgrade.” It described the decision as “a painful but necessary base change”, adding, “Transforming an entire institution is hard. It disrupts real lives. This is not a localized incident. It is a complete structural overhaul.”Talrop also said it would begin settling salary dues for all affected fresher employees from July 15, and would pay an additional ₹300 per day as compensation for any delay in settlement. The company framed the layoffs as part of a broader restructuring to make room for a “massive, decentralized tech expansion” across Kerala. It said it plans to convert 100 of its Village Parks into AI Hubs over the next six months, which it claims will create up to 2,000 new jobs within a year. Meanwhile, Talrop CEO Jones Joseph defended the company’s restructuring, arguing that Kerala needs globally successful entrepreneurs. “How did Mark Zuckerberg create Facebook from Silicon Valley? How did Elon Musk become Elon Musk? How did Steve Jobs become Steve Jobs? Naturally, we also need a Steve Jobs, we also need a Mark Zuckerberg, we also need these world-renowned entrepreneurs. If you ask how they will emerge, we don’t have an answer to that. Searching for that answer is what we have been working on here for the last nine years,” he told the media.Joseph also claimed that the company had raised ₹250 crore in investments over the past decade and denied any financial impropriety or personal enrichment by its founders. “We have raised ₹250 crores. If we have raised it, we have also invested it here. We haven’t created even a single rupee’s worth of personal assets from it. In fact, we are inviting investigations,” he said.Employees, however, staged a protest alleging that the company had failed to pay salaries for months. One employee told the media that he had not received his salary for 11 months. Joseph did not directly respond to these allegations. Instead, he said disagreements were inevitable because the company did not have a loss of pay policy. He also claimed that funding had been affected by the conflict between the United States and Iran.The layoffs at Talrop come just weeks after the termination of nearly 800 employees at CorroHealth Infotech Private Limited, a medical coding firm, raising fresh concerns over job security in Kerala’s private sector.