Zoom lays off 1,300 employees as coronavirus pandemic-driven demand falls
Chief Executive Officer Eric Yuan said that his company had grown three times three times in one year as demand for virtual meetings soared during the pandemic.
Zoom Video communications on Tuesday announced that it will layoff 1,300 persons from its staff, according to a memo from company’s Chief Executive Officer Eric Yuan.
The company said that the job cuts are being introduced since demand for its services is declining in the post-pandemic period.
“Our trajectory was forever changed during the pandemic when the world faced one of its toughest challenges, and I am proud of the way we mobilised as a company to keep people connected,” Yuan said.
He added: “To make this possible, we needed to staff up rapidly to support the quick rise of users on our platform and their evolving needs. Within 24 months, Zoom grew 3x in size to manage this demand while enabling continued innovation.”
However, he added that in the post-pandemic period the uncertainty of the global economy and its effect on Zoom’s customers compelled the company to take the decision.
“Each organisation across Zoom will be impacted by these changes,” Yuan said.
The company chief also added that he would take a pay cut of 98% for the coming fiscal year and forego his bonus, while members of his executive leadership team will reduce their base salaries by 20% for the coming fiscal year while also forfeiting their corporate bonuses for the year.
The layoff at Zoom come after string of job cuts that began last year in major technology companies.
Social media company Twitter had laid off 50% of its workers across the world in November while Meta fired 11,000 employees in the same month. In November, online retail giant Amazon had also announced 10,000 layoffs. On January 5, the e-commerce company had announced it will lay off more than 18,000 employees.
On January 18, technology company Microsoft laid off 10,000 of its employees.
The layoffs come amid an increase in global unemployment as projected by a report released by the International Labour Organization last month. The United Nations agency had predicted global unemployment to increase by 30 lakh to 20.8 crore in 2023, pushing the joblessness rate to 5.8%.
