I keep hearing about overbooked (not understaffed, if we’re being honest) business complaining that no one wants to work anymore. But just about every night on the news I keep hearing about layoffs… so which is it? I mean, it can’t be both right? Also, why does the media say that companies are “valued” at the amount of their debt to their investors?
Here is a partial list (in alphabetical order by company name) who have recently been, or will soon be, reducing the size of their staff and payroll. (Because it’s all about the money.) It’s almost as if people are being squeezed to death with the cost of housing, gas, heating, cooling, groceries, etc. and don’t have discretionary budget afterward. Ah… Capitalism… monetizing absolutely everything until people can’t afford barely anything.
Now, let’s take a look…
On 10/14/2022 Crunchbase reports:
“After a banner year for tech, layoffs are here. In fact, as of mid-October, more than 44,000 workers in the U.S. tech sector have been laid off in mass job cuts so far in 2022, according to a Crunchbase News tally.
SOURCE: https://news.crunchbase.com/startups/tech-layoffs-2022/
6Sense on 10/14/2022:
“US-based artificial intelligence (AI) platform 6Sense has laid off close to 150 employees or 10 percent of its workforce globally, including many from its India offices in Bengaluru and Pune, according to people aware of the matter.
The layoffs have happened over last three to four days across content, design, video editing, product, sales, marketing and engineering teams, the people said, requesting anonymity. Employees were told about it on a 15-minute Zoom call which had their respective managers and someone from the HR (Human Resources) team, they added.
“On Thursday I was asked to join a Zoom call. The call had my manager and an HR person,” said an employee requesting anonymity.
“I wasn’t expecting this at all. Tech, product and engineering folks had an offsite in Dubai next week (October 17-21) and we have our tickets. Now are told we can’t attend it as we are laid off. This was totally unexpected,” the employee said.
“I wasn’t expecting this at all. Tech, product and engineering folks had an offsite in Dubai next week (October 17-21) and we have our tickets. Now are told we can’t attend it as we are laid off. This was totally unexpected,” the employee said.
As a part of a severance package, employees have been offered to encash their privilege leaves. Employees were told uncertain macroeconomic environment as the reason for layoffs. The third quarter of 2022 was bad for the company, just as it was bad for all SaaS (software-as-a-service) companies and so they had to do this to cut costs, the employee quoted above said.”
Bed Bath and Beyond on 8/31/2022:
“Bed Bath & Beyond unveiled plans to lay off 20% of its workforce and take out $500 million in new financing, as the struggling retail giant closes 150 “lower-producing” stores amid continuing issues with low sales.”
Better.com on 8/26/2022:
“Online mortgage lender Better.com reportedly announced its third round of layoffs this year and its fourth in the past 12 months, laying off close to 250 employees, an unnamed worker told TechCrunch—bringing the company’s total layoffs since December to roughly 4,000 as the company struggles amid a precipitous downturn in the housing market”
Beyond Meat On 10/14/2022:
Beyond Meat plans to cut 19% of its workforce, or about 200 employees, the company said Friday in a regulatory filing.
The cuts are expected to be completed by the end of the year and are an effort to achieve cash flow positive operations within the second half of 2023. In August, the company announced it was trimming its workforce by 4%.
Shares of the company fell nearly 10% Friday, dragging the company’s market value below $900 million. The stock was already down about 78% so far coming into the trading day, as the plant-based food maker struggles with declining sales. Shares earlier this week notched a 52-week low of $12.76 per share.
The announcement came as the company also revealed its chief operating officer, Doug Ramsey, left the company weeks after he was arrested for allegedly biting a man’s nose and punching a Subaru in an Arkansas parking garage.
Built In (online community for San Francisco Bay Area startups and tech companies) On 10/5/2022:
“Yesterday was a heavy day for a lot of folks at Built In as ~25% of the organization was laid off, including myself.”
SOURCE: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6983434763575455744/
Compass on 9/20/2022:
“Compass Inc. cut more jobs, part of cost-reduction moves by the real estate brokerage as it aims to turn a profit even in a weakening US housing market.
Chief Executive Officer Robert Reffkin said in a memo obtained by Bloomberg that the biggest reduction was in the technology team. Compass said Tuesday in a regulatory filing that it estimates it will take a pre-tax cash charge of about $23 million to $26 million for severance and other benefits for employees being terminated during the third quarter. A company spokesman declined to disclose how many employees…”
DocuSign on 9/28/2022:
“DocuSign will lay off 9% of its workforce as part of a major restructuring plan, the company announced Wednesday.
The plan is designed to support the company’s growth and profitability objectives and improve its operating margin. As of January, DocuSign had 7,461 employees, and it said the restructuring plan will largely be complete by the end of fiscal year 2023.
Shares of DocuSign closed up 5.09% on Wednesday.
It expects to incur charges between $30 million and $40 million, largely in the third and fourth quarter of fiscal 2023, as part of the changes.
The electronic signature software maker enjoyed a wave of greater interest among investors during the Covid pandemic as consumers and corporate workers became more reliant on digital ways to sign documents. But the interest has died down, and shares have fallen 65% so far this year.”
Facebook/Meta on 10/1/2022:
“California-based Meta plans to close its Manhattan office, unnamed sources told Bloomberg, one week after the company implemented a hiring freeze, and less than a month after the Wall Street Journal reported it’s reorganizing departments and giving some of its 83,553 staff a month to apply for different positions within the company”
SOURCE: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2022/10/15/hellofresh-reportedly-cuts-600-employees-here-are-the-biggest-us-layoffs-this-year/?sh=7d2583f26c82
HelloFresh on 10/14/2022:
“HelloFresh, which took off during pandemic-related shutdowns, cut 611 workers workers and shut down a California production facility this week as the company focuses on “newer, more efficient sites,” a company spokesperson told Business Insider (HelloFresh did not immediately respond to an inquiry from Forbes).”
Homie on 2/11/2022:
“Utah-based proptech Homie has laid off one-third of its staff, according to reports.
Hunter Richardson, former director of talent advisory and acquisition at Homie, posted on LinkedIn that he was among the one-third affected but declined to comment on his being let go.
Homie was founded in 2015, and according to its CEO and co-founder Johnny Hanna’s LinkedIn page, it most recently employed “over 270 people.” The company’s page on LinkedIn shows 311 employees. PitchBook indicates 315 employees as of 2021. Doing the math – if one-third of the staff was let go, that could be anywhere from 90 to 105 affected people.”
SOURCE: https://techcrunch.com/2022/02/11/homie-lays-off-1-3-of-its-staff/
Instacart on 9/24/2022:
“Instacart has been letting go of staff, slowing hiring and curbing other expenses as it heads toward a public listing, when the grocery-delivery company will try to convince public investors that it can maintain its growth—and make a profit—as the economy slows.
The San Francisco startup over the last two months has fired some of its more than 3,000 workers after holding midyear performance reviews where managers were instructed to provide feedback on employees’ shortcomings, according to two people with direct knowledge of the situation.
Instacart joins other tech companies, including Meta Platforms, that are trimming staff by taking a harder look at employee performance or leaving open positions unfilled while avoiding highly publicized layoffs.”
SOURCE: https://www.theinformation.com/articles/instacart-cuts-staff-curbs-hiring-in-run-up-to-ipo
Intel on 10/11/2022:
“Intel Corp. is planning a major reduction in headcount, likely numbering in the thousands, to cut costs and cope with a sputtering personal-computer market, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
The layoffs will be announced as early as this month, with the company planning to make the move around the same time as its third-quarter earnings report on Oct. 27, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations are private. The chipmaker had 113,700 employees as of July.
Lyft on 9/27/2022:
“
Ride-hailing company Lyft Inc. said today it’s freezing all hiring in the U.S. through the end of the year amid uncertain economic conditions and rising inflation.
Reuters reported that the company, which cut 60 jobs in its rental division in July, has been battling surging expenses amid the highest inflation in the U.S. in 40 years. Costs at Lyft increased 36% in its most recent quarter, a quarter which also saw Lyft report a net loss of $377.2 million versus $251.9 million a year ago and $196.9 million in the previous quarter.
Lyft had 5,000 employees as of June 30. According to the New York Post, Lyft started notifying job candidates of the hiring freeze earlier this week.
The decision by Lyft to pause hiring comes amid hiring freezes and layoffs in the broader tech sector, including in the ride-hailing business. Lyft’s main rival Uber Technologies Inc. was reported in May to be slashing marketing and incentive costs and treating hiring as a “privilege.””
Netflix On 9/14/2022:
“The Netflix Animation overhaul continues with the exit of 30 employees, Deadline has confirmed. This comes after Netflix set new leadership for the Animation Film team with Karen Toliver (VP Animation Film Content) and Traci Balthazor (VP Animation Film Production). They have been tasked with streamlining the animation team, which explains the attrition.”
SOURCE: https://deadline.com/2022/09/netflix-animation-layoff-30-staffers-overhaul-continues-1235118700/
Noom On 10/11/2022:
Noom, a health coaching platform valued at $3.7 billion last year, is laying off a portion of staff for the second time in a matter of months, TechCrunch has learned from sources.
Noom has laid off 10% of its staff, or around 500 people, which is a reduction that mostly impacts its coaching team. It’s the second layoff impacting Noom’s coaching team in a matter of months, impacting hundreds of employees. Sources say that Noom has nearly halved its number of coaches since the beginning of the year, which looks to currently be around 1,000 coaches.
“Noom has experienced extraordinary growth over the past several years, and it’s essential that we are structured in a way that enables us to continue growing over the long term,” a Noom spokesperson said over e-mail. “We recently made the difficult decision to reduce the number of Noom employees. We are deeply grateful for their contributions to Noom, and we wish them continued success.” Noom declined to answer questions regarding scale of layoffs, separation packages and strategy beyond this statement.”
SOURCE: https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/11/noom-tech-layoffs-diet-app/
Oracle on 10/13/2022:
“Oracle is laying off 201 employees, according to multiple outlets, citing documents filed to the state’s Employment Development Department, two months after the company started laying off an undisclosed number of its estimated 143,000 employees, as part of a larger plan to cut thousands”
Pacaso On 10/11/2022:
“Pacaso employees [about 30% of total staff] impacted by the cuts will be provided severance, health care coverage and career help, Pacaso CEO Austin Allison said during an all-hands conference call”
SOURCE: https://www.inman.com/2022/10/11/pacaso-slashes-30-of-workforce-citing-rising-rates-and-home-prices/
Paramount Health Insurance On 3/22/2022:
TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) – Some Paramount employees will soon be laid off after the company lost a Medicaid contract.
According to a statement from ProMedica, Paramount is eliminating some positions effective around July 2022. The company is still in the process of informing about 200 employees. The company says it is working with Anthem to identify open positions within both organizations that may interest affected Paramount employees.
It comes after Paramount was not awarded a contract for the new Ohio Department of Medicaid managed care program that starts in July.
SOURCE: https://www.13abc.com/2022/03/22/roughly-200-paramount-employees-be-laid-off/
PayPal on 8/3/2022:
“PayPal Holdings Inc. said restructuring costs tied to trimming its global workforce totaled $71 million in the second quarter.
The job cuts will ultimately save the payments giant about $260 million this year, including approximately $100 million in stock-based compensation, according to a regulatory filing Wednesday. PayPal is looking to the staff cutbacks as a way to reduce expenses and satisfy investors, who have punished the firm’s shares in recent quarters.”
Peloton On 8/12/2022:
“Peloton told employees Friday that it is slashing roughly 780 jobs, closing a significant number of its retail stores and hiking prices on some equipment in a bid to cut costs and become profitable.
The company did not specify how many of its 86 retail locations it plans to shutter, but said an “aggressive” reduction will begin in 2023. The pace of closures will depend on how quickly Peloton can negotiate getting out of leases.
Peloton said it will exit last-mile logistics by closing its remaining warehouses and shift delivery work to third-party providers, resulting in a portion of the job cuts. It is also cutting a number of positions in its in-house support team, which are mainly located in Tempe, Arizona, and Plano, Texas, and instead will rely on third parties.
The sweeping changes are part of recently installed Chief Executive Officer Barry McCarthy’s plan to steer the connected fitness equipment maker in a new direction. Peloton’s business boomed to unthinkable highs after the onset of the Covid pandemic, sending shares surging alongside other so-called stay-at-home stocks like Zoom. But under then-CEO and Peloton founder John Foley, demand began to slow almost as quickly as it shot up, as people started going out again.
McCarthy’s biggest tasks now include getting rid of fixed costs and finding more ways to cash in on its loyal base of customers.”
Realtor.com [owned by the same parent company as Fox] on 10/14/2022:
“Realtor.com, based in Santa Clara, laid off an undisclosed number of employees last month, citing the slowing real estate market. About 10% of the company’s employees are located out of the Bay Area. It is not clear what percentage of this group was affected by recent cutbacks.”
SOURCE: https://cupertinotoday.com/2022/10/14/bay-area-sees-mass-layoffs-in-tech-and-biotech-industries/
Redfin on 6/14/2022:
“Seattle real estate company Redfin announced Tuesday that it is cutting about 8% of its workforce, acknowledging that a housing downturn in the U.S. is hitting the company hard.
The company blamed “market conditions” in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, and Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman said in a note to employees, which was posted on the company’s blog, that “a layoff is always an awful shock, especially when I’ve said that we’d go through heck to avoid one.” But May demand was 17% below expectations, he added, and fewer sales left the company with “less money for headquarters projects.”
The cuts will impact approximately 470 employees and are expected to be completed by the end of June. The number is closer to 6% of Redfin’s workforce when employees from RentPath and Bay Equity are factored in.”
Rent The Runway on 9/12/2022:
“Rent the Runway Inc. [RENT 4.47%▲] said it would reduce its corporate workforce by 24%, primarily through layoffs, as the fashion-rental service adjusts to a slowdown in consumer spending and shifts from shopping habits adopted earlier in the pandemic.”
SalesForce On 10/12/2022:
“Salesforce recently laid off a number of workers and implemented a new hiring freeze through January 2023, Protocol has learned.
The full extent of the head count reduction couldn’t be determined, though sources said it appeared to be at least 90 employees and seemed to largely impact contract workers as opposed to full-time employees. That’s a small fragment of Salesforce’s over 73,000 workers, but large tech companies have been loathe to undergo layoffs, most likely to avoid igniting fear among investors that their growth prospects have changed.
Salesforce declined to comment on how many employees were affected. While Salesforce implemented a hiring freeze in May, it was rescinded for roughly a month before the new freeze was put in place this week, according to sources.”
SOURCE: https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/salesforce-layoffs-hiring-freeze
Side lays off 10% of workforce on 6/1/2022:
“The San Francisco-based startup had been on an IPO track but expanded ‘faster than we could train, support and develop everyone,’ according to a company memo obtained by Inman.”
SOURCE: https://www.inman.com/2022/06/01/side-lays-off-10-of-workforce-1-year-after-unicorn-valuation/
Spotify On 10/6/2022:
“Reached for comment, Spotify said it does not comment publicly on staffing changes.”
SOURCE: https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/06/spotify-cancels-11-original-podcasts-lays-off-under-5-of-staff/
StitchFix on 6/9/2022:
“Stitch Fix said Thursday that it is laying off 15% of salaried positions within its workforce, mostly in corporate roles and styling leadership positions, in a bid to trim expenses amid red hot inflation and waning consumer demand for certain items.
CNBC was first to report on the layoffs, which the company confirmed Thursday afternoon as it reported its financial results for the three-month period ended April 30.
Stitch Fix said it expects to save between $40 million to $60 million in fiscal year 2023 with the job cuts and other changes. It also anticipates incurring restructuring and other one-time charges of roughly $15 million to $20 million, which will be recognized in its upcoming fourth quarter.
The company also offered up a disappointing forecast for its fiscal fourth quarter, calling for revenue to be between $485 million and $495 million, which would represent as much as a 15% drop from prior-year levels.
Tesla on 7/12/2022:
“Tesla is laying off 229 data annotation employees who are part of the company’s larger Autopilot team and is shuttering the San Mateo, California office where they worked, according to a California regulatory filing.
TechCrunch previously reported that nearly 200 employees were being laid off, according to sources who talked to TechCrunch on condition of anonymity. Bloomberg was the first to report the layoffs, which have now been confirmed via a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act notice. The WARN ACT requires employers conducting mass layoffs to issue a 60-day notice for affected workers.
The San Mateo office employed 276 workers. The remaining 47 employees may be sent to work in Tesla’s Buffalo Autopilot office, according to sources familiar with the matter. Most of the workers were in moderately low-skilled, low-wage jobs, such as Autopilot data labeling, which involves determining if Tesla’s algorithm identified an object well or poorly, according to one source.
The source noted layoffs of this team were rumored to be on the table for months and that the work would be offloaded to Buffalo.
The layoffs are part of the 10% reduction in workforce that Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced in last month.”
Warner Brothers On 10/10/2022:
“Another wave of Warner Bros Discovery post-merger layoffs is coming.
We hear multiple divisions of the merged company will be impacted, with Warner Bros. Television Group considered a main target. The staff reductions are expected this week, as soon as (and likely) Tuesday. Speculation about the imminent downsizing started spreading like wildfire Monday morning. Reps for WBD and WBTVG declined comment.
The number of layoffs is unclear but appears to be substantial. The HBO/HBO Max programming operation in August laid off 14% of staff — about 70 people — the vast majority of them on the Max side, with the areas of Max Non-Fiction Originals, International, Acquisitions, Casting and Live-Action Family Originals as the most heavily impacted.”
SOURCE: https://deadline.com/2022/10/warner-bros-discovery-layoffs-warner-bros-television-group-1235140339/
Warner Brothers On 10/12/2022:
“The Warner Bros. Discovery layoffs continue.
Deadline understands that WBD Streaming Marketing, which promotes its shows across its digital platforms, is the latest division to be hit.
WBD confirmed the cuts were happening today but did not disclose how many positions were being eliminated.
All of this comes as Warner Bros. Discovery attempts to make at least $3B in savings following the merger. Deadline understands that all of the layoffs are expected to be completed before the Thanksgiving holiday.”
SOURCE: https://deadline.com/2022/10/warner-bros-discovery-layoffs-streaming-marketing-cuts-1235142535/
Again this is only a small, partial list. There are many more across all types of industries and geographical locations. In my opinion, it’s time to start counting your pennies–while you still have a few.
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