eBay cutting 1,000 jobs, will reduce contract workforce
eBay Inc. is reducing its full-time staff by about 9%.
In a note posted on a corporate blog titled “Ensuring eBay’s Long-Term Success,” eBay president and CEO Jamie Iannone said that as part of an effort to make “fundamental changes in our experiences across categories and accelerate the pace of innovation” which has been going on for the past three years, eBay will reduce its current workforce by approximately 1,000 roles or an estimated 9% of full-time employees.
“We need to better organize our teams for speed — allowing us to be more nimble, bring like-work together, and help us make decisions more quickly,” Iannone said in the note. He said the company will also scale back on contracts within its “alternate workforce” in the coming months.
Iannone also said that while eBay has been making progress in its strategy to deal with issues like the current “challenging macroeconomic environment,” overall headcount and expenses have outpaced the growth of its business. eBay will shortly begin notifying employees whose roles have been eliminated and said it will provide impacted employees with transition support and resources.
Affected employees will directly be informed of their termination via Zoom conversations with their managers, and an executive will send impacted employees an email once the notifications in their group have been completed. All U.S. eBay employees are working from home on Wednesday, Jan. 24 to provide “space and privacy” for conversations regarding layoffs.
“These changes are difficult, but I’m confident that by working together we will become stronger than ever,” Iannone said in the note. “In the months ahead, you will see a more focused, agile, and responsive eBay — one that is better positioned to advance our purpose of creating economic opportunity for all."
Founded in 1995 in San Jose, Calif., eBay Inc. generated nearly $74 billion of gross merchandise volume in 2022.
Amazon, Wayfair trim headcount
eBay is the latest major e-commerce retailer to enact job cuts in the wake of the cooling e-commerce boom which peaked during the COVID-19 pandemic. Amazon recently said it would reduce staff in its Buy with Prime division by about 5%, and has laid off employees across the organization since saying it intends to eliminate about 9,000 workers in a March 2023 memo to employees.
In addition, Wayfair recently laid off approximately 1,650 employees —roughly 13% of its global workforce, including 19% of its corporate team — its third round of job cuts since August 2022.