eBay has announced plans to cut around 1,000 jobs as the company looks to ensure its “long-term success”.
A announcement by CEO Jamie Iannone confirmed that “approximately 1,000 roles”, or the equivalent of around 9% of the company’s full-time workforce, would be eliminated as it seeks better cost efficiency.
The e-commerce giant claims to have been on a transformative journey over the past three years since the pandemic, making shifts in user experiences and increasing customer satisfaction in certain areas of investment.
eBay announces large-scale layoffs
Although layoffs continued into 2024, the last weeks of 2022 and early 2023 were considered the most severe. A total of more than 262,000 tech workers were laid off in the calendar year 2023 (via fired.fyi), with some of the most significant reductions affecting around 10-15% of companies’ workforces.
eBay’s decision to reduce its workforce by 9% is quite significant, even by 2023 standards, but it’s unclear exactly what percentage of all the company’s employees will be affected, as the 9% only covers full-time workers.
The announcement confirmed that, despite continued consumer spending, eBay’s spending has become a problem: “our total workforce and spending are greater than the growth of our business.”
Leaders have been told to communicate workforce changes directly via Zoom, eBay’s preferred videoconferencing platform. In an effort to soften the blow, the company on Jan. 24 asked all U.S. employees to work from home to allow “space and privacy for these conversations.”
Ny Breaking asked eBay to confirm more details about the layoffs, including information about a severance package to support affected employees. The company did not immediately respond.