More tech company wagon-circling as economic woes begin to bite harder: a report in The Verge claims that Snap is about to lay off around 20 percent of its 6,400 employees – that’s around 1280 people. Certain teams are affected more than others: according to the Verge’s sources, a team building games and mini apps, the Zenly social mapping division, and Snap’s hardware division that made its AR Spectacles will see the deepest cuts.
As with many tech business – especially ones who went on a hiring spree during lockdown – cuts are deemed necessary amid drastically drooping stock prices (Snap’s price is down significantly – 80% – this year.)
It follows a number of staffing cuts at tech companies in, or parallel to, the music/tech space. At the start of this month, Soundcloud also cut up to 20% of its workforce, albeit from a smaller global team of around 400 people.
Other companies in the space are ”slowing hiring” (Spotify) and others are reportedly “restructuring” (TikTok).
While this is bad news for the employees affected, Snap itself – like the other businesses making preemptive deep cuts – appears to be in reasonable shape. Snap is still growing, has a hefty daily user base in the hundreds of millions, and has regularly innovated in the social media space: all factors which bode well as it braces for a continued economic downturn.
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