New Delhi, Jan 13 (IANS): Ride-hailing major Ola has started to lay off 200 employees from its Ola Cabs, Ola Electric and Ola Financial Services verticals as part of the "restructuring" exercise.

The layoffs, which were first announced in September last year, happened across the teams.

The company told IANS that it is "centralising operations and is undertaking a restructuring exercise to minimise redundancy and build a strong lateral structure that strengthens relevant roles and functions".

The layoffs constitute 10 per cent of its 2,000-strong engineer workforce "as part of a larger restructuring exercise towards its electric dream".

"Currently, the company has around 2,000 engineers and aims to increase its engineering talent pool to 5,000 over the next 18 months," according to the ride-hailing company.

The Bhavish Aggarwal-run company has nearly 1,100 employees in its core ride-hailing business.

Earlier, restructuring exercises impacted employees across product, marketing, sales, supply, tech, business, and operations verticals at the company, affecting nearly 500 employees that "were a result of restructuring in the cars and dash businesses".

The ride-hailing major last year shut down its used vehicle business Ola Cars, as well as its quick-commerce business, Ola Dash, as the company shifted focus on its electric two-wheeler and car verticals.

Ola said it plans to hire 5,000 engineers as it doubles down on new engineering verticals and strengthens capabilities across vehicle, cell, battery, manufacturing and autonomous streams.