Eric Yuan, Zoom’s CEO has announced that the tech firm will be laying off approximately 1,200 of its employees which represents 15% of its total workforce. In an attempt to weather the tough economic times while simultaneously continuing to provide its customers with quality services and achieving its long-term goals
Ever since the pandemic hit, a lot of people joined the platform to ensure that they remained connected as a lot of organizations began to embrace the hybrid work approach. In turn, the company was prompted to make a lot of hires to ensure that the customers’ needs were tended to in a timely manner as well as enable continuous innovation. Besides, in just 24 months the company’s size grew three times more.
Zoom has received notable enhancements and features in the recent past designed to help it compete on an even playing field with its competitors such as email and calendar clients as well as the incorporation of new features into Zoom Chat designed to enhance the meeting experience.
Eric further notes that while the hires served the need at the time, some mistakes were made. “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,” says Eric.
The reality post the COVID-19 pandemic isn’t the same as it was before, despite the fact that users continue to make use of Zoom. The current economic state across the globe has definitely impacted how users interact with the platform, thus prompting the move to lay off employees across each organization in Zoom.
Affected employees will receive up to 16 weeks’ salary and healthcare coverage, payment of earned FY’23 annual bonus based on company performance, RSU and stock option vesting for 6 months for US employees and through August 9, 2023 for non-US employees, outplacement services that include 1:1 coaching, workshops, networking groups, and more.
Moving forward, some adjustments will be made across teams to ensure that the company is making thought-out investments. The CEO reduce his salary for the coming fiscal year by 98% and forego the FY23 corporate bonus as well. The executive leadership team will also reduce their base salaries by 20% and forego their corporate bonuses too.
While the news is quite sad, Zoom isn’t in a unique position, since the year began, a couple of tech firms have also been affected by massive layoffs due to the tough economic times, this includes, PayPal, Google, and Microsoft.