PayPal has announced 2,000 job losses, or around 7% of its workforce, as it battles a ‘challenging macro-economic environment’.
In an announcement to employees yesterday (31 January), the company’s president and CEO Dan Schulman said cuts to full-time employees would be made in the coming weeks, with “some organisations impacted more than others”.
PayPal employs around 250 staff in the UK. It is not yet known if any of these jobs will be lost.
Schulman said the payment technology company had made progress in its efforts to reshape the business amid a challenging economy, but more work needed to be done to “right-size” costs and focus resources on priority areas.
He said the company had to make a “hard” decision to reduce its headcount.
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“We will treat our departing colleagues with the utmost respect and empathy, provide them with generous packages, engage in consultation where required, and support them with their transitions. I want to express my personal appreciation for the meaningful contributions they have made to PayPal,” he said.
“Change can be difficult – particularly when it includes valued colleagues and friends departing. We will face this head-on together, drawing on the unparalleled scale of our global platform, the strategic investments we have made to strengthen our core capabilities, and the trust and loyalty of our customers.”
The payment technology company is the latest big tech firm to announce sweeping job losses, following recent announcements by Twitter, Meta, Spotify, Microsoft, Amazon, Google parent Alphabet, IBM and SAP.
Tech workers in the UK are worried about potential job losses, according to the recruitment platform CWJobs. Its survey of 2,000 tech workers found 53% are pre-emptively applying for new jobs in case of redundancies at their firm.
Director Dominic Harvey said: “Tech workers are showing signs of uncertainty around job security – likely triggered by what they are reading in the news and on social media. So, employers need to go the extra mile to reassure them and build a strong sense of security in their current role and long-term career prospects. This could be key to attracting and retaining much-needed talent over the coming months and years.”
However, Gartner HR suggested that UK employers were unlikely to make sweeping cuts.
Research director Caitlin Duffy said: “While industries like technology and financial services have had very public layoffs in recent weeks, our research indicates that today’s layoffs are more of a ripple than a wave – and they are small when compared to the overall increase in job postings in recent years.
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“Layoffs are usually a last resort for companies, but some leaders will be tempted to follow the lead of these big firms making big job cuts. That would be very short-sighted – layoffs have a huge impact on employee morale and productivity, and they can create critical skills gaps within the organisation at the time they’re needed most. They can also erode trust in leadership, especially when poorly communicated.”
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