Indeed’s job cut announcement is coming at a time when several tech companies are laying off thousands of employees in an attempt to gear up for a global economic slowdown.
American multinational job listing platform Indeed on Wednesday announced to trim its workforce by 15%, impacting around 2,200 employees. Indeed’s chief executive officer Chris Hyams further announced to take a 25% cut in base pay.
“With future job openings at or below pre-pandemic levels, our organization is simply too big for what lies ahead. We need clarity, focus, and urgency to ensure that all of our energy is directed towards investing in our future. We have held out longer than many other companies, but the revenue trends are undeniable. So I have decided to act now,” Hyams said in a blog.
The job cut decision will impact nearly every team, function, level, and region at Indeed and Indeed Flex, the company’s CEO added. The affected employees will get a severance package which will include 16 weeks of base salary, or two weeks for every year of service, whichever is greater. Other benefits offered by the company to the impacted workforce include access to career placement services for six months, access to mental health services for twelve months, and cash payouts in some cases, among others.
“The specific decisions on who and where to cut were extremely difficult, but they were made with great care. We focused on preparing the organization for the future, aligning with our strategy and priorities, and reducing duplication of effort and inefficiency,” the CEO added.
Indeed’s job cut announcement is coming at a time when several tech companies including Mark Zuckerberg-led Meta, Sundar Pichai-led Alphabet, Elon Musk-led Twitter, and Satya Nadella-led Microsoft, among others, are laying off thousands of employees in an attempt to gear up for a global economic slowdown. In a nutshell, a setback in consumer spending due to high inflation and interest rates along with the threat of a looming recession this year has pushed corporates to keep a lid on their spending.
Just last week, Meta announced its second round of mass layoffs and said to reduce the team size by around 10,000 employees and further close around 5,000 open roles. Meta announced its first round of job cuts in November last year and laid off more than 11,000 employees, or almost 13% of its workforce at the time. In January, Google parent Alphabet notified in a staff memo to lay off about 12,000 employees or trim 6% of its workforce.
