Zoom to lay off 15% of staff, CEO faces massive 98% pay cut

Zoom, the tech company that has thrust itself into the spotlight during the Covid-19 pandemic when many companies went remote, announced plans on Tuesday to cut 1,300 employees from its workforce.

In a message shared with Zoom employees on Tuesday, CEO Eric Yuan wrote that the company must adapt to “the uncertainty of the global economy” and “its impact on our customers.”

Shares of Zoom stock are up more than 7% in afternoon trade.

“We’ve worked tirelessly to improve Zoom for our customers and users. But we also made mistakes,” Yuan wrote on a Zoom blog. “We haven’t taken as much time to thoroughly analyze our teams or assess whether we’re growing sustainably toward the highest priorities.”

The layoffs account for 15% of the company’s workforce, Yuan said.

The company has increased staff during the pandemic, the CEO said, as businesses have become increasingly reliant on its service as people work from home.

Zoom tripled in size in 24 months to meet demand.

He also said businesses remained dependent on their service post-pandemic, but adjustments were needed.

Yuan said he is also cutting his salary by 98% for the upcoming fiscal year and forgoing his 2023 corporate bonus. He blames mistakes made at the San Jose, California-based company and the actions taken.

Yuan’s executive team is also cutting its base salaries by 20% for the upcoming fiscal year and waiving its corporate bonuses for 2023.

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Layoffs join Google, Amazon, Spotify, Microsoft and more

Zoom is the latest tech company to lay off scores of employees.

Google’s parent company Alphabet recently laid off 12,000 employees, or 12% of its workforce. Meta has cut an even larger chunk of its staff. Even IBM, which has been in business for 111 years, is shedding thousands of jobs.

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Since the beginning of the year, 297 tech companies have laid off nearly 95,000 workers, according to data compiled by Layoffs.fyi, a website that has tracked tech layoffs since March 2020. If this rate continues, the industry could shed more than 900,000 jobs by 2023. That’s almost six times the total for the industry in 2022, according to the website.

Contributors: Associated Press, Elisabeth Buchwald and Javier Zarracin

Natalie Neysa Alund covers trending news for USA TODAY. Reach her at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @nataliealund.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Zoom layoffs hit 1,300 employees, CEO Eric Yuan cuts pay

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