Wave of Layoffs Continues as Firms Adjust to Market Changes

Rapid, formerly known as RapidAPI, laid off an additional 70 employees on May 5, following a previous layoff of 50% of its staff just two weeks earlier. The company’s headcount has dropped 82%, from 230 in April to just 42 employees remaining. Meesho also announced this month that it has cut 15% of its workforce, which amounts to 251 roles. This comes after the company’s first round of layoffs about a year ago, which eliminated 150 roles. Shopify is another company that has recently made layoffs. It is laying off 20% of its workforce, impacting more than 2,000 people. Bishop Fox announced it has laid off around 50 employees, or 13% of its workforce. Vorwerk-owned Neato Robotics also announced that it is shutting down, with nearly 100 employees impacted by the move.

In April this year, a number of prominent companies including Clubhouse, Dropbox, and Amazon announced job cuts. Clubhouse laid off over 50% of its staff, while Dropbox cut 16% of its workforce — around 500 employees. Amazon continued to make significant cuts, with the closure of its Halo Health division and other units leading to a total of 27,000 job cuts, or 8% of its corporate workforce this year. Anthemis Group cut 28% of its employees, or 16 people, while Lyft’s layoffs affected around 1,072 people or 26% of its workforce. Meanwhile, Meta announced that it plans to lay off a total of 10,000 jobs in the coming months, on top of the 11,000 jobs that were cut in November last year. As per a Tech Crunch report, other companies that announced job cuts last month include Redfin, which reduced its workforce by 4%, and Apple, which laid off a small number of roles on its corporate retail teams.

In February, Twitter, under Musk’s leadership, laid off over 200 employees, resulting in a headcount drop of over 70%. Social commerce marketplace Poshmark confirmed that its layoff plans affected less than 2% of its workforce, which amounts to roughly 800 employees. Chipper Cash, an African cross-border payments platform, conducted its second round of layoffs, relieving almost one-third of its workforce. Evernote laid off 129 employees, while Jumia cut over 900 positions across its 11 markets. Convoy announced that it would shut down its Atlanta office and lay off workers as part of its restructuring. Sprinklr confirmed that it would impact more than 100 employees, while iRobot and Twilio laid off 85 and around 1,400 employees, respectively. GitHub announced that it would impact 10% of its staff, and Yahoo announced a layoff of 20% of its staff, impacting 1,600 employees. GitLab reduced its headcount by 7%, which translates to approximately 114 people. Affirm laid off about 500 employees and shut down its crypto unit. Zoom cut 1,300 jobs, and VinFast cut “nearly 35 roles.” Dell announced a layoff of 5% of its worldwide workforce, impacting 6,650 people. Getaround laid off about 10% of its staff, while Pinterest laid off 150 employees in its second job-cutting move within weeks of the first round in December 2022. Rivian also cut 6% of its workforce for the second time in less than a year.

SoFi Technologies announced that it was cutting 65 jobs, which accounts for about 5% of its 1,300-person workforce. NetApp also announced that its layoff plans would be impacting 8% of its staff, which equates to about 960 people. Groupon announced another round of layoffs, affecting 500 employees across the first two quarters of 2023. PayPal announced on January 30 that it would be affecting about 2,000 employees or 7% of its workforce. Spotify announced that around 6% of its global workforce — approximately 600 employees will be impacted by its lay-off plans. Google’s parent company, Alphabet, announced that it would be laying off 6% of its global workforce, equating to 12,000 employees. Swiggy announced plans to lay off 380 jobs and shut down its meat marketplace. Microsoft also announced that its layoff plans would be impacting 10,000 employees. ShareChat laid off 20% of its workforce, which is over 400 employees, just a month after eliminating more than 100 roles. SmartNews announced a 40% reduction of its US and China workforce, which amounts to around 120 people. The fintech startup Greenlight laid off 104 employees or over 21% of its total headcount. Learning navigation platform Career Karma laid off another 22 people in January across its global and domestic workforce. DirectTV announced its plans to lay off about 10% of its management staff. Informatica said that it would lay off 7% of its workforce, which equates to 450 staffers globally. Coinbase announced that it would be cutting 950 jobs, which is about 20% of its workforce, and shutting down “several” projects. This was the second round of major layoffs at the crypto exchange, which eliminated 18% of its workforce, or nearly 1,100 jobs last June.