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SAN JOSE, Calif. (KRON) — Having lived through the COVID-19 pandemic, you’ve probably become quite familiar with video meeting company Zoom – but the conferencing platform, along with many formerly-high flyers of the tech industry, is now announcing layoffs.
On Tuesday, the San Jose, California-based company announced plans to cut 15% of its global workforce. The move, announced in a letter to employees published on its corporate blog, will impact around 1,300 employees.
CEO Eric Yuan stated in the letter that he would be taking a 98% pay cut and forego his 2023 corporate bonus. He added that members of the executive leadership will be taking a 20% pay cut to their base salaries and forfeiting their own corporate bonuses.
“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,” Yuan said in the letter. “As the CEO and founder of Zoom, I am accountable for these mistakes and the actions we take today– and I want to show accountability not just in words but in my own actions.”
Yuan cited Zoom’s rapid growth and aggressive hiring over the past two years as the reason for the layoffs at this point.
As of Tuesday, Feb. 7, Zoom’s stock price had fallen about 43% year over year.
Zoom is far from the only tech company to announce layoffs recently. Several other companies that have announced staffing cuts have also cited an aggressive hiring period during the pandemic as more and more people relied on technology.
“My commitment to you is that we will make sure the changes we are making to our team today are not made in vain,” Yuan said as he closed his letter. “We will learn from the past to set ourselves up for future success, and redouble our efforts to help evolve Zoom to tomorrow.”
