Lyft, one of the largest ride-sharing companies in the US, plans to lay off 26% of its staff, or 1,072 employees. The downsizing, detailed in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, is part of a larger cost-cutting strategy announced by CEO David Risher earlier this month, just as he joined the company.
The filing also revealed that the company will slash more than 250 open positions. Lyft estimated the downsizing would cost between $41 million and $47 million in severance packages, as well as possible additional costs incurred by stock-based compensations.
The layoffs are just the latest in a series of job cuts in the tech industry, and at Lyft itself. The company laid off 683 employees last November, or roughly 13% of its workforce. According to Layoffs.fyi, a website tracking headwinds in the tech industry, almost 350,000 people have been laid off by more than 1,000 tech companies since last year.
Lyft has struggled to compete with Uber, the largest ride-sharing company in the US by market share. Lyft shares have fallen by 90% since it went public in 2019.
Shares of Lyft rose slightly on the news, up 1.5% to $10.20 in New York at the market’s close. The filing said Lyft would provide more details about its cost-cutting plan in its first-quarter earnings call, scheduled for May 4.
Lyft shares have declined in 2023, despite a brief rebound
Recent layoffs in Big Tech:
March 14: Meta announces 10,000 layoffs, building on earlier downsizing as part of its year of efficiency.
March 20: Amazon announces a new round of layoffs—following last November’s job cuts—letting go of roughly 9,000 employees.
March 22: Indeed, the online job search platform, announces it will cut 15% of its staff, or 2,200 employees.
March 23: Accenture announces it will slash 19,000 jobs, or 2.5% of its total workforce.
March 30: Roku, the video-streaming service and hardware, announces downsizing affecting 6% of its workforce.
March 31: Netflix confirms it plans to lay off an unspecified number of employees.
April 3: Apple, one of the last holdouts in the industry trend, announces that it will lay off a small number of employees on its corporate retail teams.
April 27: Dropbox, the data storage company, announced it was laying off 500 employees, or 16% of its staff.
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