Snap Cuts 10 Percent Of Staff

Social media firm Snap said it would lay off 529 staff, or about 10 percent of its workforce, amidst ongoing mass layoffs across the tech industry that have followed unsustainable headcount growth during Covid-19 lockdowns.

The firm said it expects to incur pre-tax charges of $55 million (£44m) to $75m, primarily consisting of severance and related costs, along with other charges, including $45m to $55m in future cash expenditures.

It said it expects the majority of these costs to be incurred in the first quarter of 2024.

Snap has executed multiple rounds of layoffs since 2022, most recently with a small number of product employees trimmed in November.

Job cuts

Its last large round of cuts was in August 2022, when 20 percent of employees were let go amidst a restructure of the firm’s business lines.

Some 122 tech companies have already announced nearly 32,000 staff cuts this year, according to layoffs.fyi, with firms including Okta and Zoom announcing cuts this month.

Snap chief executive Evan Spiegel testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week along with other social media executives grilled over the damage their platforms caused to young people.

The negative publicity did nothing to dampen investor enthusiasm for Facebook parent Meta Platforms, which saw its stock reach an all-time high after reporting strong earnings resulting from brutal staff cuts last year.

‘Unsustainable’ costs

Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft were among those cutting tens of thousands of staff in recent months, with Microsoft cutting 10,000 last year and adding another 1,900 job cuts in January after completing its purchase of Activision.

Riot Games cut 11 percent of its staff last month, with chief executive Dylan Jadeja pointing to “unsustainable” costs and remarking that the firm had “more than doubled in headcount” over the past several years.