CorroHealth has agreed to pay an additional five months’ gross salary to nearly 800 employees terminated from its Kochi and Kozhikode offices, on top of the two months already disbursed, following government-mediated talks in Kerala on July 20, 2026.
The US-based healthcare solutions company abruptly laid off close to 850 employees engaged in medical coding work earlier this month, around 600 from Kochi and 200 from Kozhikode, triggering protests and a standoff with the state Labour Department. The company had initially defended the retrenchment by citing provisions of the new Central Labour Code, a justification Kerala’s government rejected on the grounds that the code has not yet been implemented in the state.
Kerala Labour Minister Bindu Krishna chaired the fresh round of talks at the Secretariat Annex that produced the improved settlement, and the company agreed to formalise it in a signed agreement. According to the minister’s account of the meeting, CorroHealth accepted the government’s core demands, which included the additional five months’ salary, experience certificates, relieving letters, and assistance for affected employees in finding alternative work. The extra compensation is expected to be credited by July 26.
The dispute had escalated in early July when employees alleged the company transferred two to three months’ salary into their accounts overnight, despite an understanding to maintain the status quo pending conciliation, and later denied laid-off staff entry to its offices. Affected workers argued that a company capable of moving crores overnight undercut its own claims of financial distress.
The case has drawn political attention in Kerala, with the Congress and CPI(M) both backing the affected workers and criticising the central government’s labour codes for making it easier for companies to execute mass layoffs without prior notice to state authorities.
HR teams tracking the sector should note that a second Kochi-based company, Talrop, saw a similar mass termination of nearly 300 employees days after the CorroHealth layoffs, suggesting the state’s Labour Department may see more such disputes in the coming weeks.
