At a company that helps people find a job, 2,200 employees now have to look for a job themselves. Indeed, today CEO Chris Hyams laid off 15% of employees.
In a blog post, Hyams explained the decision by explaining that the job market is expected to continue to cool. Indeed makes its money by allowing companies to sponsor job postings, making the list visible to more job seekers. But Hyams said that as of last quarter, the number of sponsored job openings was down 33% year over year and the total number of job openings was down 3.5%.
“With future job openings at or below pre-pandemic levels, our organization is simply too big for what lies ahead,” Hyams wrote. “We’ve held out longer than many other companies, but the revenue trends are undeniable. That is why I have decided to act now.”
The CEO himself will take a 25% reduction in base salary.
Employees received an email regarding their job status within an hour of the announcement – the subject lines of these emails read either “Your position has been impacted” or “Your position has not been impacted”. Workers in the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands and Japan may still be insecure due to local regulations.
Indeed offers at least 16 weeks of base salary, compensation for accrued PTO, a cash payout for RSUs not yet vested, and access to career counseling and mental health services. U.S. employees are eligible for four months of health insurance through COBRA. They can also keep their work laptop, which is immediately disconnected from Indeed’s corporate systems; but access to Slack, email, and Workday isn’t immediately affected, so people can say goodbye to colleagues and remove personal materials from their laptops, which are reset remotely.
Hyams wrote that these cuts affect nearly every team, in every role, at every level, and in every region. The company consulted with HR, legal and DEIB+ teams to ensure the layoffs did not disproportionately affect underrepresented minorities in the US.
Layoffs continue to be a concern in the tech industry. This week, Amazon carried out its second major round of layoffs in just a few months, affecting an additional 9,000 employees on top of layoffs that have already affected 18,000 people. Last week, Meta also announced a second round of mass layoffs: the social media giant plans to cut another 10,000 jobs, despite cutting 11,000 jobs in November.