The current wave of layoffs in the IT sector reached San Jose on Tuesday, when both Zoom and eBay announced hundreds of job losses.
Zoom will lay off around 1,300 people, or 15% of its employment, while eBay will lay off approximately 500 employees, or 4% of its workforce. Both firms are based in San Jose.
Zoom CEO Eric Yuan noted worldwide economic uncertainties in a statement to staff filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, after the coronavirus epidemic and increase of remote work proven beneficial to the video conferencing platform in recent years.
“Our direction was irreversibly altered during the epidemic, when the globe confronted one of its most difficult crises,” Yuan added. “We needed to staff up quickly to meet the enormous growth of users on our platform and their shifting demands in order to make this viable.”
eBay from its side also announced the cut off of 500 of its staff, eBay CEO Jamie Iannone took the global economic situation into account in her communication to staff regarding the layoffs, which was filed with the SEC. According to her, the layoffs are meant to allow the firm to streamline its structure while still investing and creating new positions in key areas.
“Today’s steps are intended to increase our capacity to provide better end-to-end experiences for our customers, as well as to promote greater innovation and scalability across our platform,” Iannone explained.
