A wave of layoffs is sweeping American business in 2022.
New startups like Peleton have already laid off thousands of employees this year. Online car dealer Carvana plans to cut 12% of its workforce. Even traditionally layoff-resistant companies like Netflix are also making cuts.
The reason is that business growth is slowing and labor costs are rising. The combination is causing American companies across a wide range of industries to cut jobs.
Below is a list of some of the most notable examples so far:
Gap: About 500 jobs
As Breaking Digest previously reported, Gap will eliminate about 500 jobs from its corporate workforce, reportedly impacting a wide range of departments and will mainly take place in Gap’s offices in San Francisco, New York and Asia.
“We’ve let our operating costs increase at a faster rate than our sales, and in turn our profitability,” Gap’s interim CEO, Bob Martin, wrote in a memo to employees obtained by The Journal.
Snap, Inc.: 20% of their employees
Snap planned to lay off about 20% of its employees beginning in late August, The Verge reported.
The cuts to Snap’s 6,400-person workforce will be concentrated in divisions like Zenly, a social mapping app Snap acquired in 2017, as well as a team working on ways for developers to build apps inside Snapchat. Snap’s hardware division will also see cuts, weeks after the company announced it was canceling its Pixy drone camera.
Wayfair: 870 employees
Furniture and home goods company, Wayfair, said it would layoff about 870 employees — 5% of its global workforce — the Wall Street Journal reported.
Breaking Digest previously reported that Wayfair’s stock fell nearly 10% after announcing their plan to layoff 870 employees.
Robinhood: More than 1,000 people in 2022
After experiencing rapid growth between 2020 and 2021, Robinhood was forced to slash their headcount by 9%, about 300 employees, in April of 2022.
In August Robinhood announced it would cut another 800 jobs, or about 23% of its staff.
In the message to employees, CEO Vlad Tenev said that the earlier round of layoffs “did not go far enough” to bring down costs amid record inflation and the crypto market crash, which has reduced trading activity on the platform.
Peleton: Over 4,150 employees
In February, Peleton laid off over 2,800 people, among other cost cutting measures, in the first round of lay-offs amid the company’s ongoing downturn in business. The second round of layoffs impacted the company’s Taiwan-based employees in July and the third round of layoffs in August.
In total, more than 4,150 jobs have been cut this year.
Shopify: About 1,000 employees
Shopify laid off about 1,000 employees, roughly 10% of its world-wide workforce.
In a memo to employees, CEO Tobi Lutke said that the company, which makes the tech that powers businesses’ online stores, had bet big on the pandemic-era e-commerce boom.
“It’s now clear that bet didn’t pay off. Ultimately, placing this bet was my call to make and I got this wrong,” Lutke wrote in the letter, which was posted on the company’s website.
7-Eleven: 880 jobs
Convenience store chain 7-Eleven cut 880 corporate jobs in Ohio and Texas in 2022 in the wake of the company’s 2020 purchase of rival Speedway.
Vimeo: 6% of its workforce
Video-hosting platform Vimeo cut 6% of its staff in July.
Tesla: 229 employees
Tesla laid off 229 people in late June, according to WARN filings.
The cuts came after CEO Elon Musk said in early June that he wanted to cut jobs and that he had a “super bad feeling” about the economy.
JPMorgan: Over 1,000 workers
In June, JPMorgan confirmed that it would lay off over 1,000 employees in its home-lending department. The cuts came amid slowing demand for mortgages and refinances.
Compass: 450 employees
Real estate brokerage Compass cut about 10% of its workforce, or 450 employees, the company announced in a regulatory filing.
Twilio: 11% of its employees
San Francisco-based cloud communication giant Twilio will lay off 800 to 900 employees across its staff of over 7,800, approximately 11% of its headcount, to cut costs during the broader economic downturn.
Noom: About 495 employees
The weight-loss app maker Noom recently laid off hundreds of coaches; Insider reported last month — part of a bigger-picture pivot for the company toward more video-based coaching.
Wells Fargo: Unknown number of employees in mortgage lending
As mortgage revenues fell at Wells Fargo in the first quarter of 2022, the company began laying off employees in mortgage-related positions, Insider reported in late April.
Loan processors and underwriters, among other positions, were reportedly affected by the layoffs.
Vroom: 270 employees or 14% of its workforce
Better: About 5,000 employees
In late 2021 and continuing through the first several months of 2022, mortgage startup Better.com laid off approximately 4,000 people.
The first wave started right before the holiday season in 2021 when CEO Vishal Garg laid off “hundreds” of people.
Better followed up with another 3,000 layoffs in March and is now accepting voluntary releases in some departments.
Carvana: About 2,500 employees
Carvana plans to cut 12% of its staff or 2,500 employees. The online car dealer announced a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Coinbase: About 18% of its workforce
Crypto exchange platform Coinbase announced it would reduce its staff by 18% “to ensure we stay healthy during this economic downturn.”
Reef: About 750 people
The startup cut about 750 employees as it worked toward profitability amid a challenging economic environment, CEO Ari Ojalvo wrote in a memo to staff.
Netflix: About 150 employees
Netflix laid off around 150 people in mid-May, its second round of layoffs in 2022.
Earlier this year, Netflix revealed that it had lost around 200,000 subscribers to its video-streaming service in Q1, its first subscriber loss in over a decade. And executives warned at the time that further subscriber losses were predicted for the future. They blamed “revenue growth headwinds” in a report to shareholders and said that heavy Netflix use during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic had “obscured the picture until recently.”
