Zoom to lay off 1,300 employees

Photo credit: Michael Vi / Shutterstock

Video conferencing platform Zoom will lay off 1,300 employees, or around 15% of its global headcount, CEO and founder Eric Yuan announced in a memo to staff.

Zoom was one of the biggest tech phenomena during the pandemic. The company revealed that it expanded 3x in size within 24 months to manage demand.

“As the world transitions to life post-pandemic, we are seeing that people and businesses continue to rely on Zoom. But the uncertainty of the global economy, and its effect on our customers, means we need to take a hard – yet important – look inward to reset ourselves,” Yuan wrote in the memo.

He added that as he is “accountable for these mistakes,” the CEO will reduce his upcoming fiscal salary by 98% and forego his corporate bonus for this year. Members of Zoom’s executive leadership team will also cut their base salaries by 20% and give up their corporate bonuses for the same period.

Affected staff in the US will receive up to 16-week salary and healthcare coverage, outplacement services, payment of annual bonus based on company performance, and stock option vesting for six months.

Zoom has joined a growing list of major tech firms that have laid off their employees recently, including the likes of Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon.

See also: Tracking layoffs across Asia’s startup ecosystem (Updated)