WebProNews

Tag: Layoffs

  • Amazon Laying Off 9,000 More, With AWS Hard-Hit

    Amazon Laying Off 9,000 More, With AWS Hard-Hit

    Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has announced the company plans to lay off an additional 9,000 employees, particularly in AWS, PXT, Advertising, and Twitch.

    Amazon has already laid off 18,000 employees, between reported decisions made in November and an expansion of those plans in January. CEO Andy Jassy has announced that the company plans to expand the scope of its layoffs once more, this time letting an additional 9,000 employees go:

    As we’ve just concluded the second phase of our operating plan (“OP2”) this past week, I’m writing to share that we intend to eliminate about 9,000 more positions in the next few weeks—mostly in AWS, PXT, Advertising, and Twitch. This was a difficult decision, but one that we think is best for the company long term.

    Jassy says a big part of the decision-making process involved looking at what mattered to the company’s customers and how best to meet those needs:

    As our internal businesses evaluated what customers most care about, they made re-prioritization decisions that sometimes led to role reductions, sometimes led to moving people from one initiative to another, and sometimes led to new openings where we don’t have the right skills match from our existing team members.

    It’s interesting that AWS is one of the teams being targeted with this round of layoffs, but Jassy emphasized his faith in the cloud division’s future:

    I remain very optimistic about the future and the myriad of opportunities we have, both in our largest businesses, Stores and AWS, and our newer customer experiences and businesses in which we’re investing.

  • Laid-Off Googlers Ask CEO to Honor Approved Medical Leave

    Laid-Off Googlers Ask CEO to Honor Approved Medical Leave

    Laid-off Google employees have repeatedly asked Google and CEO Sundar Pichai to honor previously approved medical leave.

    Google did what was once considered unthinkable for the company, laying off thousands of workers for the first time in its history. At the time, Google promised 16 weeks of severance pay plus an additional two weeks for every year an employee worked at the company.

    Unfortunately, for some workers, that still comes out to less time than they were previously promised for medical leave, parental leave, or caregiver’s leave. In early 2022, Google increased the length of various leaves, with parental leave lasting up to 24 months. At the time, Chief People Officer Fiona Cicconi said the company wanted employees to “spend more time with their new baby, look after a sick loved one or take care of their own wellbeing,” according to CNBC.

    Now, faced with losing some of that time they were previously promised, more than 100 employees have formed the “Laid off on Leave” group. The group has already sent three letters to Google executives, including Pichai, asking them to honor their previous promise.

    In the meantime, the layoffs are causing a significant amount of hardship and inconvenience, including individuals losing access to their health care via Google’s on-site One Medical facility the moment the layoffs were announced.

    Still others found out about the reduced leave they’re now facing right when they needed it most.

    “Exactly a week after receiving the text and sharing the exciting news that my maternity leave was approved, I got the already widely talked-about email letting me know that I was among the 12k terminated,” a Google program manager wrote on LinkedIn. “Easy target? Maybe.”

    “On 1/20/23 at 7:05 am while in the hospital bed holding my hours-old newborn I learned that I was part of the #thegolden12K of Googlers who had been laid off,” Kate Howells wrote on LinkedIn. “I was a Googler for 9.5 years.”

    When contacted by CNBC, a Google spokesperson simply pointed to the original layoff announcement.

    “As we shared with impacted employees, we benchmarked this package to ensure the care we’re providing compares favorably with other companies, including for Googlers on leave,” the spokesperson said.

    Needless to say, the company’s actions are not going over well with Googlers and fly in the face of the image the company has maintained for years, in terms of how it treats its employees.

    “When Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced layoffs, he mentioned the company’s commitment to AI three times, but never once mentioned Google’s commitment to accessibility,” the group wrote in an email to CNBC. “This matters deeply because accessibility is part of the company’s actual mission. This clearly calls for a re-centering of priorities. It’s unsurprising that through a bungled demo just days after laying us off, Google showed they’re indeed not leading the way in AI. However, the good news is that an incredible opportunity remains to be an accessibility leader in the treatment of laid off workers.”

  • Meta Is Laying Off Another 10,000, Touts ‘Year of Efficiency’

    Meta Is Laying Off Another 10,000, Touts ‘Year of Efficiency’

    Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced the company is laying off an additional 10,000 employees and closing additional open roles.

    Meta laid off 11,000 in November, the biggest layoff of 2022. Rumors have been circulating for weeks that Meta planned another round of layoffs, which Zuckerberg has just announced:

    With less hiring, I’ve made the difficult decision to further reduce the size of our recruiting team. We will let recruiting team members know tomorrow whether they’re impacted. We expect to announce restructurings and layoffs in our tech groups in late April, and then our business groups in late May. In a small number of cases, it may take through the end of the year to complete these changes. Our timelines for international teams will also look different, and local leaders will follow up with more details. Overall, we expect to reduce our team size by around 10,000 people and to close around 5,000 additional open roles that we haven’t yet hired.

    Zuckerberg says the hiring freezes will be lifted once the company’s reorganization is complete:

    After restructuring, we plan to lift hiring and transfer freezes in each group. Other relevant efficiency timelines include targeting this summer to complete our analysis from our hybrid work year of learning so we can further refine our distributed work model. We also aim to have a steady stream of developer productivity enhancements and process improvements throughout the year.

    A major focus of the company’s efforts is reducing the various layers of management, streamlining and flattening the company’s communication:

    In our Year of Efficiency, we will make our organization flatter by removing multiple layers of management. As part of this, we will ask many managers to become individual contributors. We’ll also have individual contributors report into almost every level — not just the bottom — so information flow between people doing the work and management will be faster.

    Meta’s image has already been tarnished, in the eyes of its employees, after its first round of layoffs. Many blame Zuckerberg and his obsession with the metaverse. Laying off another 10,000 employees is not likely to improve that perception.

  • Stanford Professor: Tech Layoffs Are ‘Copycat Behavior’

    Stanford Professor: Tech Layoffs Are ‘Copycat Behavior’

    A Stanford professor has confirmed what many suspect, saying Big Tech’s layoffs are more about “copycat behavior than necessary cost-cutting.”

    Tech companies have already laid off hundreds of thousands of workers, blaming an economic downturn and overly-aggressive hiring during the pandemic for the current cuts. It appears many of those cuts are not necessary, instead reflecting a fundamental truth about human nature, Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer told Business Insider’s Sarah Jackson:

    The idea that human behavior is influenced by what others do is really old. If you’re a pedestrian and you see a stop signal, but no cars are coming and somebody steps into the street, you’ll probably do it too. It’s almost automatic behavior.

    We should expect this to also be true in business. A lot of companies were hiring during the pandemic, so everybody decided to hire. Now, companies are laying off, and everybody decided to follow each other and lay people off. A lot of this is just imitation.

    Read more: LinkedIn Hit With Layoffs

    Professor Pfeffer goes on to question the dubious “advantages” many companies tout when laying off employees:

    In many instances, layoffs don’t increase stock prices or cut costs. Between things like the cost of severance and the loss of productivity, layoffs have pretty nasty and negative consequences for the company. It’s not clear they actually increase profits.

    The irony is that these same companies were talking a year ago about people as their most important asset, and now they’re treating their employees pretty badly, laying them off via email or by abruptly cutting off their access to the company. These layoffs are a decision that reflects the company’s values, and these companies have basically given their employees the middle finger.

    Virtually every one of the world’s biggest tech firms has already laid off thousands, including Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Meta. In fact, only Apple stands apart among Big Tech companies as the one that has yet to engage in mass layoffs.

    Perhaps, given Professor Pfeffer linking layoffs to “copycat behavior,” it’s not all that surprising Apple is the one Big Tech company to avoid layoffs. Apple has a long history of bucking popular conventions and the company and has rarely, if ever, been accused of being a copycat.

  • Ericsson Laying Off 8,500 Employees

    Ericsson Laying Off 8,500 Employees

    Ericsson is joining the list of tech companies laying off staff, with CEO Borje Ekholm saying 8,500 employees will be laid off.

    The tech sector has been especially hard-hit by the economic downturn, with companies large and small laying off workers. Ericsson is the latest to announce job cuts, according to Reuters, with Ekholm sending a memo to employees to inform them of the company’s plans.

    “The way headcount reductions will be managed will differ depending on local country practice,” Ekholm wrote in the memo.

    “In several countries the headcount reductions have already been communicated this week,” he said.

    Ericsson did not specify which regions would be most impacted, but analysts have predicted that North America would likely be one of the hardest hit.

    Ekholm said the layoffs were necessary to help the company remain competitive.

    “It is our obligation to take this cost out to remain competitive,” Ekholm said in the memo. “Our biggest enemy right now may be complacency.”

  • Meta Plans to Lay Off More Personnel

    Meta Plans to Lay Off More Personnel

    Meta appears to be moving forward with plans to lay off additional personnel despite CEO Mark Zuckerberg indicating the contrary.

    Meta laid off 11,000 employees in late 2022, marking the biggest layoffs of the year among tech firms. According to The Washington Post, Zuckerberg framed the layoffs as a necessary step to “minimize the chance of having to do broad layoffs like this for the foreseeable future.”

    “I obviously can’t sit here and promise you that nothing will happen in the future because it’s a very volatile environment,” he added. “But what I can say is that for where we are right now, that’s what I foresee.”

    Unfortunately, according to the Post, Meta appears to be preparing for another major round of layoffs, despite Zuckerberg’s assurances. The company is having its lawyers, financial experts, executives, and human resources personnel devise a plan that would reorganize the company and possibly lead to thousands of jobs being cut.

    Part of leadership’s goal is to flatten the corporate hierarchy, reducing the path between Zuckerberg and the company’s interns. The move will see some team leaders taking on lower-level roles. The Post’s sources said the company expects some of the individuals whose roles have changed to eventually resign, naturally reducing the company’s headcount through attrition.

    The Post’s report confirms other rumors regarding the company’s plans. Meta recently gave thousands of its employees the second-lowest review possible, raising concerns it was laying the groundwork for another round of layoffs.

    Meta’s actions also appear to be a concerted effort to streamline its operations and return to the startup-style way of operating it enjoyed before becoming a multi-billion dollar corporation. The company has recently taken fire for its ‘self-sabotaging’ behavior by none other than legendary developer John Carmack.

    “We have a ridiculous amount of people and resources, but we constantly self-sabotage and squander effort,” Carmack wrote when he departed the company in December. “There is no way to sugar coat this; I think our organization is operating at half the effectiveness that would make me happy.”

    “I have never been able to kill stupid things before they cause damage, or set a direction and have a team actually stick to it,” he added.

  • Meta May Be Prepping for More Layoffs, Giving Thousands Poor Reviews

    Meta May Be Prepping for More Layoffs, Giving Thousands Poor Reviews

    Meta may be prepping to lay off thousands more employees after giving them poor performance reviews.

    Meta has already laid off 11,000 employees, the largest number for a single company in 2022. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, the company may be preparing to add to that number, giving some 10% of its employees a “meets most” rating. Of the company’s five performance ratings, “meets most” is the second-lowest, with “meets some” being the lowest. Very few of the lowest ratings are ever given, however.

    Meta has repeatedly signaled its intention to drastically cut costs. CEO Mark Zuckerberg emphasized that goal once again in a recent discussion with investors.

    “We’re working on flattening our org structure and removing some layers of middle management to make decisions faster as well as deploying AI tools to help our engineers be more productive,” Zuckerberg said.

    Employees have already expressed their frustration with Zuckerberg over his management of the company, especially his near-obsessive focus on the metaverse. The frustration is driven in no small part by the fact that Meta is continuing to pour billions into metaverse development, despite its mass layoffs.

    If the company does engage in another major round, it’s a sure bet confidence in Zuckerberg’s leadership will hit an all-time low.

  • DocuSign Is Laying Off 10% of Its Staff

    DocuSign Is Laying Off 10% of Its Staff

    DocuSign has filed paperwork with the SEC indicating it plans to lay off 10% of its employees, or roughly 700 individuals.

    DocuSign experienced rapid growth during the pandemic as record numbers of people worked remotely, making digital document signing a critical component of day-to-day operations. As many companies have experienced, however, with the economic downturn has come a reduced need for many of the products and services that were flying high just months before.

    The company described the layoffs as a “restructuring plan”:

    On February 16, 2023, DocuSign, Inc. (the “Company”) announced a restructuring plan (the “Restructuring Plan”) that is designed to support the Company’s growth, scale and profitability objectives. As part of the Restructuring Plan, the Company expects it will restructure and reduce its current workforce by approximately 10%, primarily in the Company’s worldwide field organization.

    Interestingly, the company expects to pay $25 to $35 million to implement this plan:

    The Company currently estimates that it will incur charges of approximately $25 to $35 million in connection with the Restructuring Plan, consisting primarily of cash expenditures for employee transition, notice period and severance payments, employee benefits, and related costs as well as non-cash expenses related to vesting of share-based awards. The Company expects that the majority of the restructuring charges will be incurred in the first quarter of fiscal 2024, and that the execution of the Restructuring Plan will be substantially complete by the end of the second quarter of fiscal 2024.

  • Microsoft’s Azure Business Hit With Layoffs

    Microsoft’s Azure Business Hit With Layoffs

    Microsoft’s Azure division appears to be the latest part of the company hit with layoffs, with 150 personnel impacted.

    Microsoft announced in January that it planned to lay off 10,000 employees but did not provide details about which divisions would experience cuts. The company’s plans have only become apparent as layoffs have occurred. Yesterday news broke that LinkedIn was the latest division to experience downsizing, following similar action across the HoloLens, Surface, and Xbox teams.

    According to The Information, Microsoft’s Azure division now joins the list. A source told the outlet that approximately 150 individuals in the company’s digital cloud acquisition team had been let go. The team is responsible for “convincing medium-size companies to adopt cloud services such as Azure server rentals and Microsoft 365 productivity apps.”

    Interestingly, the impact on the Azure team goes beyond just sales personnel. Azure test engineers, systems administrators, and product managers have posted on LinkedIn within the last few days, revealing they had been laid off.

    Gaurang Deshmukh, Software Test Engineer at Microsoft, was one such individual:

    With an extremely heavy heart, I have to announce that I was one of the employee impacted by #Microsoft layoffs. Despite this setback, I’m extremely grateful for my experience at Microsoft as Software Test Engineer in Azure for Operators #A4O org for over 3 years.

    Christopher Teahan, Azure Cloud Administrator, was another:

    I was laid off from #Microsoft this week, it was a great experience working for a start up like Affirmed Networks for 4 years and then transitioning to a larger company as part of the Microsoft acquisition back in 2020. I was at Microsoft for almost 3 years and learned a lot being part of the IT and BIS teams and working on the migrations of our legacy IT systems and tools to the Microsoft’s. Working on #Azure projects and transiting legacy systems to the cloud has been amazing and I am thankful for all I’ve learned at Microsoft. I will miss being part of the Azure for Operators organization and everyone I have worked with over the past 6-7 years, but it’s time for a new challenge and journey!

    During the economic downturn, the cloud segment has been one of the more resilient elements of the tech industry. While tech layoffs have become an almost daily occurrence, it is odd that the Azure team has been this heavily impacted.

  • LinkedIn Hit With Layoffs

    LinkedIn Hit With Layoffs

    Microsoft’s LinkedIn is the latest company to be hit with layoffs, with employees in the recruiting department impacted.

    Microsoft is in the midst of its announced layoffs of some 10,000 employees. When the company broke the news, executives did not reveal which departments and divisions would be impacted. As a result, the industry has been learning which employees are being let go as Microsoft makes the cuts.

    The HoloLens, Surface, and Xbox divisions all recently experienced layoffs. According to The Information, the company has now confirmed that LinkedIn, specifically the recruiting department, is the latest business to be impacted.

    Staff were notified Monday, although, at the time of writing, there were no posts on LinkedIn from any of the affected employees.

  • Getting Laid Off May Be the Doorway to a Better Job

    Getting Laid Off May Be the Doorway to a Better Job

    The tech sector has been hit with a wave of layoffs, but it’s not all bad news, especially for the workers being laid off.

    Mass layoffs have become an almost daily occurrence. Over the course of 2022, the tech sector saw a whopping 241,176 layoffs. As big as that figure may be, 2023 has already seen an additional 131,132 layoffs at the time of writing (via TrueUp). Almost no portion of the tech sector is immune, with companies large and small letting workers go.

    While being laid off can be a traumatic experience, the picture is not entirely doom and gloom. In fact, being laid off may be the best thing to happen to some people.

    Revelio Labs looked at the state of the industry, as reported by Business Insider, and found that 75% of laid-off tech workers can expect to find a new job within three months. In fact, while tech workers are almost always in demand, Revelio Labs found that is especially true in the current climate. In contrast, 71% could expect to find a job within three months in January 2022 and only 67% in July 2021.

    Perhaps most telling, Revelio Labs found that 52% of laid-off tech workers were finding jobs that paid more than the job they lost. There is such a demand for tech workers that Insider reports many employers are forced to offer a 7% premium over what their existing employees are being paid in order to attract new talent.

    “The key takeaway is ‘do not despair,’” says Reyhan Ayas, a senior economist at Revelio Labs. “The job market is still hot. Although some parts of the tech industry are struggling, other companies are actively hiring.”

  • Yahoo Plans to Lay Off 1,000 Now, 600 Later

    Yahoo Plans to Lay Off 1,000 Now, 600 Later

    Yahoo is preparing for a round of layoffs, with plans to eliminate 1,000 jobs now and up to 600 in the second half of 2023.

    First reported by Axios, Yahoo’s layoffs will impact roughly 20% of the company’s workforce. Unlike many of the tech industry’s recent layoffs, Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone said the decision was not a result of financial issues, but is simply part of a larger restructuring.

    “The moves are meant to simplify and strengthen the good parts of the business, while sunsetting the rest,” Lanzone said.

    As part of the company’s restructuring, Yahoo will be shutting down portions of its advertising business, which has long been outclassed by both Google and Meta. As a result, while the rest of the business is quite profitable, the advertising business has increasingly been an anchor that is dragging the company down.

    “A lot of resources were going into that unified stack without a return,” Lanzone added. “This was a longstanding issue with every variation of this company … that needed to be solved eventually.”

    Lanzone says the move will be “tremendously beneficial for the profitability of Yahoo overall,” and will help the company “to go on offense” in more profitable areas.

    The move comes at a time when Yahoo is teasing a return to the search market, so it will be interesting to see if getting back to the company’s roots is an area where Lanzone plans “to go on offense.”

  • Visible Will Cover Customers’ Phone Bills if They Are Laid Off

    Visible Will Cover Customers’ Phone Bills if They Are Laid Off

    Visible is taking customer service to an all-new high, offering to cover customers’ phone bills if they are laid off.

    Visible is a Verizon-owned wireless carrier, focusing on an all-digital experience with unlimited plans. The company’s goal is to simplify wireless and offer premium services at a much lower price than traditional carriers.

    Visible is taking it a step further, however, offering to help out customers who have lost their job amid the recent economic downturn. The program is called Connection Protection and is a partnership between Visible and Empower Work.

    Through the program, Visible, the Verizon-owned all-digital wireless carrier, will help people stay connected by providing three months of cell phone service to those experiencing a work setback. And Empower Work, a national nonprofit, will provide support via our worker text line for people to process their job loss, think through their job search, and work on a plan to land their next job.

    If you’ve lost your job, had your hours cut, or are between jobs, you can apply for Connection Protection starting right now.

    The program is available to new and existing Visible customers who have been laid off, are not employed, and actively looking for work.

    Customers can find out more information here…

  • Disney Is Cutting 7,000 Jobs

    Disney Is Cutting 7,000 Jobs

    Disney CEO Bob Iger announced 7,000 jobs cuts at the company amid ongoing issues with profitability.

    Disney has been struggling to cut costs and increase profitability, instituting hiring freezes and even bringing back Bob Iger as CEO. Disney+ has been a big drain on the company, wracking up $1.5 billion in losses for the company recently.

    Those losses appear to be adding up, with Iger announcing the company will be laying off 7,000 employees, according to The Los Angeles Times.

    “While this is necessary to address the challenges we’re facing today, I do not make this decision lightly,” Iger said in a conference call with analysts. “I have enormous respect and appreciation for the talent and dedication of our employees worldwide, and I’m mindful of the personal impact of these changes.”

    Iger acknowledged the company may have been a bit too aggressive with its Disney+ pricing, setting itself up for losses.

    “In our zeal to go after subscribers, I think we might have gotten a bit too aggressive in terms of our promotion,” Iger said.

  • Zoom Is Laying Off 1,300 Employees

    Zoom Is Laying Off 1,300 Employees

    The poser-child for pandemic-fueled growth is joining the long list of companies letting employees go, with Zoom announcing 1,300 layoffs.

    CEO Eric S. Yuan announced the layoffs in a blog post:

    Over the past few years, Zoom has become an indispensable source of connection for businesses and individuals as well as a globally recognized brand. Whether you have been at Zoom since the beginning or joined us more recently, you’ve played an important role in our evolution, and that makes today’s announcement particularly difficult. We have made the tough but necessary decision to reduce our team by approximately 15% and say goodbye to around 1,300 hardworking, talented colleagues.

    Like almost every other tech CEO, Yuan blames explosive growth during the pandemic, followed by a dramatically different economy in recent months:

    We built Zoom to remove the friction that businesses felt when collaborating. Our trajectory was forever changed during the pandemic when the world faced one of its toughest challenges, and I am proud of the way we mobilized as a company to keep people connected. To make this possible, we needed to staff up rapidly to support the quick rise of users on our platform and their evolving needs. Within 24 months, Zoom grew 3x in size to manage this demand while enabling continued innovation.

    We worked tirelessly and made Zoom better for our customers and users. But we also made mistakes. We didn’t take as much time as we should have to thoroughly analyze our teams or assess if we were growing sustainably, toward the highest priorities.

    As the world transitions to life post-pandemic, we are seeing that people and businesses continue to rely on Zoom. But the uncertainty of the global economy, and its effect on our customers, means we need to take a hard – yet important – look inward to reset ourselves so we can weather the economic environment, deliver for our customers and achieve Zoom’s long-term vision.

    The company will offer US-based employees 16 weeks salary, as well as health coverage. The company will also pay FY23 annual bonuses and receive outplacement assistance.

  • Dell Laying Off 5% of Its Workforce

    Dell Laying Off 5% of Its Workforce

    Dell is joining the ranks of companies laying off employees, with plans to let 5% of its workforce go.

    Like many PC manufacturers, Dell was flying high during the pandemic, thanks to unprecedented demand for computers. Post-pandemic, however, demand has come crashing down, bringing Dell and other manufacturers with it.

    In a regulatory filing, the company announced plans to lay off 5% of its workforce, or roughly 6,600 employees.

    On February 6, 2023, Dell Technologies Inc. (the “Company”) announced to its employees reorganizations and actions to align its investments more closely with its previously discussed strategic and customer priorities. These actions will result in a reduction of approximately 5% of the Company’s workforce as the Company continues to take prudent steps in light of a challenging global economic environment.

    In a letter to employees, Vice Chairman and Co-COO Jeff Clarke, promised that impacted employees will be supported by the company as they move on to other opportunities.

    What we know is market conditions continue to erode with an uncertain future. The steps we’ve taken to stay ahead of downturn impacts – which enabled several strong quarters in a row – are no longer enough. We now have to make additional decisions to prepare for the road ahead.

    Unfortunately, with changes like this, some members of our team will be leaving the company. There is no tougher decision, but one we had to make for our long-term health and success. Please know we’ll support those impacted as they transition to their next opportunities.

  • FedEx Is Reducing Its Management Team by More Than 10%

    FedEx Is Reducing Its Management Team by More Than 10%

    FedEx CEO Raj Subramaniam has announced plans to lay off more than 10% of the company’s “officer and director team.”

    FedEx has been struggling to maintain profitability as things have returned to normal. With more people shopping in person in the waning days of the pandemic, shipping demand has dropped considerably.

    In order to adapt to the changing market, Subramaniam informed the company that cuts were coming.

    As you know, we have embarked on a transformation effort to create the world’s most flexible, efficient, and intelligent supply chain for our customers. This process is critical to ensure we remain competitive in a rapidly changing environment, and it requires some difficult decisions.

    Today we are in the process of informing a number of team members across our global enterprise that their positions have been eliminated as we reduce the size of our officer and director team by more than 10% and consolidate some teams and functions.

    The CEO said the company’s HR team would be in contact with the impacted employees to help with “outplacement services, benefits, and severance compensation.”

  • PageDuty CEO Apologies for Martin Luther King Jr. Quote in Layoff Email

    PageDuty CEO Apologies for Martin Luther King Jr. Quote in Layoff Email

    PagerDuty CEO Jennifer Tejada has apologized to employees for a cringe-worthy layoff email in which she quoted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

    In late January, Tejada sent an email announcing layoffs for roughly 7% of the company’s staff. Throughout the lengthy email, Tejada showed remarkable tone-deafness and spent much of the email cheerleading for the company’s accomplishments and patting leadership on the back — not a good look when announcing layoffs. The worse part, however, was quoting Dr. King at the height of back-patting the company’s leadership.

    After predictably swift backlash, it appears Tejada has received the message loud and clear. The CEO posted an apology to employees, which is displayed below in its entirety:

    Team,

    This has been a difficult week for our company. For those of you who were not able to attend our town hall discussion today, I wanted to share what we discussed. The way I communicated layoffs distracted from our number one priority: showing care for the employees we laid off, and demonstrating the grace, respect, and appreciation they and all of you deserve.

    There are a number of things I would do differently if I could. The quote I included from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was inappropriate and insensitive. I should have been more upfront about the layoffs in the email, more thoughtful about my tone, and more concise. I am sorry.

    Many of you have reached out to me this week with feedback, questions and support – thank you.

    Jenn

  • PayPal Is Laying Off 2,000 of Its Workforce

    PayPal Is Laying Off 2,000 of Its Workforce

    PayPal has announced it is laying off roughly 2,000 employees, representing approximately 7% of its staff.

    PayPal has been working over the last couple of years to transform its business to adapt to changes in the technological and business landscape. The company has explored the possibility of stock-trading platform, and added support for cryptocurrency.

    In a company announcement, President and CEO Dan Schulman painted the layoffs as the next — albeit unfortunate — step in the company’s transformation.

    Addressing these changes requires us to make hard decisions that will impact some of our colleagues. Today, I’m writing to share the difficult news that we will be reducing our global workforce by approximately 2,000 full time employees, which is about 7% of our total workforce. These reductions will occur over the coming weeks, with some organizations impacted more than others. We will treat our departing colleagues with the utmost respect and empathy, provide them with generous packages, engage in consultation where required, and support them with their transitions. I want to express my personal appreciation for the meaningful contributions they have made to PayPal.

  • Impossible Foods May Lay Off 20% of Its Workforce

    Impossible Foods May Lay Off 20% of Its Workforce

    Impossible Foods may be poised for a second round of layoffs, with a report putting the number at 20%.

    Impossible Foods makes plant-based “meats.” It’s product is sold in stores and used in Burger King’s Impossible Whopper, as well as other fast-food meals. Despite its success, the company appears to be on the verge of additional layoffs.

    According to Bloomberg, via TechCrunch, the company is planning to let roughly 20% of its workforce go. With a total of 700 employees, this would impact more than 100 workers.

    Impossible Foods already let 6% of its staff go in October, well before some of the biggest layoffs in the tech industry. The most recent report is somewhat surprising since Impossible Foods appears to be doing well financially, with strong sales, positive growth, and good cash flow.

  • EV Startup Arrival Appoints New CEO, Lays Off 50% of Staff

    EV Startup Arrival Appoints New CEO, Lays Off 50% of Staff

    Electric vehicle startup Arrival has undergone a major shakeup, appointing a new CEO and announcing layoffs of 50% of its staff.

    Arrival has a deal with UPS to provide 10,000 electric delivery vans through 2024. Despite the high-profile contract, the company has struggled financially and is now announcing its second round of layoffs in a year.

    Following a detailed review of its operations and its markets, Arrival is now announcing immediate actions to further reduce its operating costs and to optimize the deployment of its current cash resources. This includes the difficult decision to reduce its global workforce by approximately 50% to 800 employees. When combined with other cost reductions in real estate and third-party spending, the company expects to halve the ongoing cash cost of operating the business to approximately $30 million per quarter.

    Simultaneously, the company also announced a new CEO, Igor Torgov. Torgov has a long history in the tech industry, with stints at Microsoft, Bitfury, Columbus A/S, and Yota. Most recently, before serving as Arrival’s EVP of Digital, Torgov served as CEO of Atol.

    “Accepting this important role at a critical point in Arrival’s journey is a significant responsibility,” said Torgov. “Arrival has developed unique technologies in a market that has huge growth potential and can play a key role in addressing climate change. To unlock these opportunities, we need to make difficult decisions and to take swift action. Following a detailed evaluation of Arrival and the wider EV market during the past two months, the leadership team and the Board have taken decisive action to ensure the most effective use of our current resources and optimize the efficiency of the business. The actions support our journey to become a champion in innovative products and new, more efficient methods of vehicle production, particularly in the important US market for commercial electric vehicles. We are keenly aware that these decisions, while necessary, will have a profound impact on a significant number of our colleagues. We are 100% committed to supporting our employees during this difficult process.”