By John Ikani
Zoom Video Communications, the company behind the popular video conferencing platform, announced on Tuesday that it will be laying off approximately 15% of its workforce, or around 1,300 employees.
CEO Eric Yuan is taking a 98% cut in salary this year and forgoing his executive bonus, along with the executive leadership team who will be taking a 20% salary reduction and also forfeiting bonuses.
The decision to lay off employees is a result of customers cutting back on spending as the world transitions to life post-pandemic.
Despite the job cuts, Zoom will continue to invest in strategic areas.
Zoom’s growth during the pandemic was significant, with the company tripling its employees as people turned to the platform for remote work, court hearings, and social events.
However, the uncertainty of the global economy has forced the company to take a hard look inward and reset itself to weather the economic environment and achieve its long-term vision.
Zoom joins a growing list of US tech firms, including Microsoft, Google parent Alphabet, Amazon, Twitter, and Dell, who are slashing jobs as years of high spending gives way to parsimony due to the harsh economic conditions around the world.
According to Layoffs.fyi, over 95,000 tech employees have lost their jobs since the beginning of January worldwide.
