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Ride-sharing company Bird is laying off nearly one-quarter of its staff according to tech layoff tracker Layoffs.fyi.
The company, which provides transportation through electric scooters and bikes, confirmed the news of laying off 23% of employees, stating that this will range from all parts of the organization and various regions.
“While the need for and access to micro-electric vehicle transportation has never been greater, macro economic trends impacting everyone have resulted in an acceleration of our path to profitability,” Bird told TechCrunch.
“In addition to eliminating all non-critical third party spend, we also unfortunately had to depart with a number of team members who passionately helped create a new industry and paved the way for more eco-friendly transportation.”
The company has around 600 staffers, meaning around 138 will likely be fired. And it isn’t the first time the company has resorted to layoffs in wake of economic uncertainty — at the beginning of the pandemic, Bird laid off 30% of its workforce.
However, a former employee says the company has learned from its previous mass layoff mistakes. Instead of conducting them via Zoom en masse, Bird has taken a one-on-one approach this time around.
“It’s great to hear it from your own manager. In my case, my manager gave me a warning as soon as the Q1 earnings was released,” the employee said. “As a result, I was mentally prepared.”
Fired employees received a minimum of three weeks of severance pay, three months of healthcare coverage, and more.
Bird has not been the only tech company to be hit with layoffs — in fact, 16,000 tech employees lost their jobs last month.
Achieving profitability has become increasingly important as the threat of inflation and an economic downturn forces companies to cut back on expenditures. Because of this, Bird also paused its retail operations to “streamline and consolidate its resourcing against its core business.”
