PayPal will lay off nine percent of its workforce, the company’s CEO Alex Chriss said in a letter to staff on Tuesday, which would be made public hours later. The decision affects about 2,500 employees, who will learn their fate between now and the end of the week, Bloomberg previously reported. PayPal’s layoffs come almost a year after the company laid off more than 2,000 workers to keep costs down.
PayPal lays off 2500 workers
Despite thousands of layoffs in 2023, layoffs at technology companies continued in 2024. On the same day as PayPal’s latest layoffs, Jack Dorsey’s Block, which owns Cash App, Foundational and Square, made its second round of layoffs in two months. Approximately a thousand people died per month. Earlier this month, Google laid off more than a thousand workers in its Assistant and hardware divisions, while CEO Sundar Pichai warned employees to prepare for more cuts throughout the year. Discord, eBay, Riot Games, TikTok, Microsoft, iRobot, Amazon, Unity, and Duolingo and others collectively laid off thousands of people in January.
PayPal was one of the oldest companies in the online payments industry, but in recent years competitors like Zelle and big-budget tech companies like Apple have entered the space. Competition in the payment industry puts pressure on PayPal. Bloomberg noted that four analysts downgraded the company’s shares this month. The company will continue to invest in business areas that we believe will create and accelerate growth, Chriss said in his letter.