Zoom cuts 15 percent of jobs, ‘staff growth was not sustainable’

Zoom says it is laying off 1,300 employees, or about 15 percent of the job base. The company partly blames the amount of people hired during the corona pandemic. “That growth was not sustainable,” the company says now.

During two years in the corona pandemic, Zoom’s job base grew three times, writes Eric Yuan in a blog to all staff. “We made mistakes. We didn’t take enough time, as we should have, to thoroughly analyze whether we were growing sustainably, towards the highest priorities.” Due to the uncertainty of the global economy and its effects on customers, Zoom now needs to “reset,” Yuan said.

Every part of the company is affected by the layoffs, with choices made “based on critical priorities for long-term growth.” The creator of the video calling app emphasizes that people and companies still use Zoom and Yuan says he still believes in the future of the company. The CEO speaks of a ‘platform vision’ in which ‘the best tools and applications for modern collaboration in one place’.

Yuan says he wants to take responsibility for the round of layoffs and is therefore reducing his salary for this year by 98 percent. He also does not receive a bonus this year, as do other members of the executive management. Their salary is reduced by 20 percent. Zoom is not the only company that is cutting many jobs, although the percentage is relatively high. For example, chip manufacturer Micron is talking about 10 percent, Google’s parent company is talking about 6 percent, just like Spotify, and PayPal is losing 7 percent of all jobs.