Paypal, the online payment company, has announced plans to reduce its global workforce by 2,000 people, or 7%, as part of cost-cutting measures.
The company stated that this decision was unavoidable in light of the “challenging macroeconomic environment.”
Paypal’s announcement was the latest in a string of layoffs by major technology companies that have affected thousands of tech workers worldwide.
Message to the employees
The Chief Executive Officer of Paypal, Dan Schulman, in a message to the company’s employees noted that while the company had made some progress in right-sizing its cost structure, it realized that has to do more to remain in business.
Over the past year, we made significant progress in strengthening and reshaping our company to address the challenging macroeconomic environment while continuing to invest to meet our customers’ needs. While we have made substantial progress in right-sizing our cost structure and focused our resources on our core strategic priorities, we have more work to do. We must continue to change as our world, our customers, and our competitive landscape evolves.
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 appreciation for the meaningful contributions they have made to PayPal, Schulman said in the memo sighted by EntrepreneurNG.
Difficult change
While acknowledging that the transition would be difficult, Schulman stated that the company’s employees would face the challenge together, drawing on the unparalleled scale of its global platform, strategic investments made to strengthen its core capabilities, and the trust and loyalty of its customers.
Over the next days and weeks, your leaders will share the specific impacts within your business units and teams. Our leadership team will communicate regularly and openly. This will be a challenging period for our community, but I am confident we will come through it together with compassion for each other, our values at the fore, and a shared commitment to the future of PayPal,” he added.
Tougher year for tech
While big tech companies began to lay off employees last year, with companies like Meta and Twitter making significant cuts, things are getting tougher for tech workers this year, with a larger number of layoffs announced in just one month into 2023.
Amazon announced at the start of the year that it would cut over 18,000 jobs due to economic uncertainty.
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, also announced 12,000 job cuts, while Microsoft said up to 10,000 employees would be laid off.
International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) also announced plans in January to cut about 1.5% of its global workforce, affecting 3,900 people.
Spotify, the Swedish music-streaming giant, announced last week that it would lay off 6% of its approximately 10,000 employees, citing the need to improve efficiency.
