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Juul, a maker of e-cigarettes, laid off 900 employees (30%) last month in a move unrelated to the coronavirus. The company has been mired in controversy over its role in the rise of underage vaping.
Juul also laid off 650 employees last October, bringing the total number of employees cut in the past year to 1,550.
In the wake of these layoffs, two separate lists of ex-Juul employees have emerged (see links below 👇). The official Juul Labs Alumni List contains 49 ex-employees actively looking for a job, though not all are from the most recent round of layoffs. The unofficial Juul layoff spreadsheet contains 79 ex-employees, but most were from last October’s layoff and may have already found new jobs.
Finally, some long-awaited good news: the number of newly-reported startup layoffs has been steadily declining for the past 5 weeks, today’s Uber layoff not withstanding. After a coronavirus record of 99 startups conducted layoffs in the first week of April, this past week saw only 22 startups cut jobs, a decline of 78%.
Unfortunately, the number of employees laid off has not benefited from a similar trend. During that same 5-week period, the number of new employees laid off per week dropped from 7,692 to 6,562, a decline of just 15%.
In fact, 4 of the 10 biggest tech layoffs since COVID-19 have occurred in just the past two weeks.
Company
# Laid Off
%
Industry
Date
Uber
6,700
25%
Transportation
5/6, 5/18
Groupon
2,800
44%
Retail
4/13
Airbnb
1,900
25%
Travel
5/5
Stone
1,300
20%
Finance
5/12
Toast
1,300
50%
Food
4/7
Magic Leap
1,000
50%
Consumer
4/22
Yelp
1,000
17%
Consumer
4/9
Lyft
982
17%
Transportation
4/29
Juul
900
30%
Consumer
5/5
TripAdvisor
900
25%
Travel
4/28
In the early weeks of the coronavirus pandemic, smaller cash-strapped startups were the first to conduct layoffs to avoid going out of business. Later-stage startups and recently-public tech companies had more buffer to hold off on layoffs due to their larger cash reserves. At the time, smaller travel startups like Lola, Remote Year, and WanderJaunt were laying off dozens of employees each even though the likes of Airbnb and TripAdvisor hadn’t yet cut staff.
Two months into nationwide lockdowns, these bigger tech companies couldn’t keep holding off. They’ve now also had enough time to properly budget, plan, and execute their layoffs, something that takes longer at a 4,000-person company than a 40-person one. Small wonder that in the first half of May, it’s felt like dominoes falling when it comes to late-stage startup layoffs.
The media has also started selectively covering only the bigger startup layoffs, as layoffs have gotten too frequent to keep up. We’re still trying, though! The Layoffs.fyi Tracker has counted 430+ startups that have laid off 50,000+ employees since the coronavirus was declared a pandemic, though there are hundreds more layoffs that haven’t been reported publicly.
Uber just announced another mass layoff today, and WeWork expects to continue performing rolling layoffs through the end of the month. But once the smoke clears from those layoffs, will we finally see some ecosystem renewal? Here’s hoping.
This morning, Uber announced it was laying off 3,700 employees (14%) in its customer support and recruiting teams. The CEO’s letter to staff strongly hints that more cuts are coming in the next two weeks. As many as 5,400 employees are expected to ultimately be laid off.
Yesterday, Airbnb laid off 1,900 employees (25%) across all teams. It expects revenue to fall by more than half in 2020 as global travel stays frozen.
This means that in the past two days alone, we’ve seen two of three biggest tech layoffs since the coronavirus was declared a pandemic on March 11:
Company
# Laid Off
%
Industry
Date
Uber
3,700
14%
Transportation
5/6
Groupon
2,800
44%
Retail
4/13
Airbnb
1,900
25%
Travel
5/5
Toast
1,300
50%
Food
4/7
Yelp
1,000
17%
Consumer
4/9
Magic Leap
1,000
50%
Consumer
4/22
Lyft
982
17%
Transportation
4/29
TripAdvisor
900
25%
Travel
4/28
Not surprisingly, nearly all of these mass layoffs — including Uber’s and Airbnb’s — can be attributed to shelter-in-place orders. Our previous analysis showed that 2/3 of startup employees laid off have come from industries directly affected by shelter-in-place, such as transportation, travel, real estate, food, and fitness. The layoffs have hurt sales and customer success roles most.
Unfortunately, more big layoffs are still to come. Juul is reportedly planning to lay off 800 to 950 employees, roughly one-third of staff. WeWork, which has already cut thousands of employees across multiple rounds of layoffs, expects to continue making cuts through the end of May. Square has managed to avoid a layoff so far, but remains exposed to small business customers in food and retail that have been shutting down en masse.
Our live Layoffs Tracker is tracking all startup layoffs, and has now tallied over 42,000 employees laid off across 374 companies. Best wishes to those affected and here’s hoping that we reach the bottom soon.
