Major U.S. companies have laid off thousands of employees so far this summer, as CEOs fear soaring inflation could tip the economy into a recession.
E-commerce company Shopify became the latest company to lay off employees, cutting ties with 1,000 (10% of its workforce), CEO Tobi Lutke announced, saying skyrocketing demand for online shopping during the pandemic has leveled off, and that the company made a bet that “didn’t pay off.”
Boston tech-watch company Whoop slashed 15% of its workforce, telling the Boston Globe it now has 550 employees (meaning it cut close to 97) adding in a statement, “given how negatively the macro environment has evolved, we need to grow responsibly and control our own destiny.”
7-Eleven, which operates 13,000 convenience stores across North America, cut 880 U.S. corporate jobs, just over a year after it completed a $21 billion deal to purchase Speedway.
Seattle real estate startup Flyhome axed 20% of its staff, reported to be close to 200 workers, as the company navigates “uncertain economic conditions.”
Ford plans to lay off up to 8,000 employees as the automaker seeks to pivot away from gas-powered cars and toward electric vehicle production, Bloomberg reported.
Vimeo CEO Anjali Sud announced on LinkedIn the online video company is cutting 6% of its workforce to “come out of this economic downturn a stronger company.”
Ohio-based automated health software startup Olive laid off 450 employees, nearly 35% of the company, as CEO Sean Lane admitted the company’s commitment to “act with urgency” led to a hiring spree that proved to be too much to handle, prompting him to “rethink this approach.”
Crypto exchange Gemini cut 68 employees—or 7% of its staff—less than two months after it let go of 10% of its workforce, according to TechCrunch.
OpenSea, the New-York based non-fungible token (NFT) company, announced in a tweet it laid off 20% of its staff over fears of “broad macroeconomic instability” with the possibility of “prolonged downturn.”
Online ordering startup ChowNow laid off 100 people, TechCrunch reported, as it reels back from a “large and ambitious” budget it couldn’t meet amid fears a stunted market could fuel a recession.
Tonal, the at-home fitness company, cut 35% of its workforce amid a worsening “macroeconomic climate and global supply chain challenges.”
Tesla laid off 229 employees, primarily in its autopilot division, and shut down its San Mateo, California, office, just weeks after CEO Elon Musk sent an email to executives, saying he had a “super bad feeling” about the economy and planned to cut 10% of his workforce, Reuters reported.
Some 1,500 employees at the international delivery startup Gopuff were let go, (10% of its staff) and 76 of its U.S. warehouses were shut down, according to a letter to investors first reported by Bloomberg, as the company moves away from a growth-at-all-costs model.
California-based mortgage lender loanDepot announced plans to lay off 2,000 workers by the end of the year, bringing its 2022 layoffs to 4,800 — more than half of the company’s 8,500 employees — amid a precipitous downturn in the housing market that’s “contracted sharply and abruptly,” CEO Frank Martell said in a statement.
Electric automaker Rivian unveiled plans to lay off 5% of the company’s 14,000 employees in areas that grew “too quickly” during the pandemic and to halt hiring of non-factory workers, according to an internal email from CEO RJ Scaringe, Bloomberg reported.
Real estate firm Re/Max announced plans to lay off 17% of its workforce by the end of the year, with a goal of bringing in $100 million in annual mortgage-related revenue by 2028.
JPMorgan Chase — the nation’s largest bank — laid off and reassigned more than 1,000 of its 274,948 employees, citing rising mortgage rates and increased inflation.
Real estate companies Compass and Redfin announced plans to cut 10% and 8% of their workforces, respectively, following a 3.4% drop in home sales from April to May, according to the National Association of Realtors, amid concerns the once red-hot housing market had cooled.
Some 1,100 Coinbase employees learned they had been released after losing access to their work emails, marking an 18% reduction in the crypto company’s staff — a move that CEO Brian Armstrong called essential to “stay healthy during this economic downturn” — and a warning sign of a recession and a “crypto winter” after a 10-plus-year crypto boom.
Used car seller Carvana CEO Ernie Garcia III sent an email to 2,500 employees — 12% of the company’s workforce — informing them they had lost their jobs, one week after freezing new hiring, as the company embraced for what looked like a looming recession in car sales, and reports of a “spendthrift” business style had come back to bite the company.
Many experts warned the U.S. may be headed toward recession following reports the economy contracted 1.6% in the first quarter of the year. The Federal Reserve’s announcement in June to raise interest rates by 75 basis points, its largest rate hike in 28 years, reignited fears of economic turmoil and recession. Last month, economists at S&P Global Ratings forecast a 2.4% drop in GDP by year’s end, a reverse in course from earlier forecasts of 2.4% growth. Bank of America issued a warning Wednesday that “economic momentum has faded,” and a “mild recession” is possible by the end of the year. Meanwhile, stocks continue to drop as inflation soars. The latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed a 9.1% spike in inflation from June, 2021, with gas, housing and food making up the largest increases.
Even with the layoffs, the unemployment rate remains low, holding on at 3.6% for the past four months. In an interview with the Washington Post Thursday, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Labor Julie Su said she was optimistic the economy will rebound, citing 9 million jobs created since President Joe Biden took office, and 372,000 new jobs in June.
244,000. That’s how many people applied for unemployment benefits last week, an eight-month high and a 3.4% increase from 235,000 the previous week, according to a Department of Labor report released Thursday.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2022/07/26/shopify-lays-off-1000-here-are-the-major-us-job-cuts-as-recession-fears-grow/