It’s unclear exactly how many people were impacted by the latest round of layoffs or which departments were the hardest hit. The state’s Employment Development Department declared Waymo, as of Wednesday, hadn’t filed a WARN notice specifying how many employees were laid off. The company didn’t disclose the scale of its layoffs when reached for comment.
“A compact number of Waymo teams recently created adjustments to their teams as part of normal course of business,” a company spokesperson declared in an email.
Waymo, which employs about 2,500 people, slashed 137 jobs in March mostly affecting engineering roles, the International Business Times reported.
Waymo’s spree of layoffs comes amid its significant robotaxi expansion. The company debuted its signature black-and-white robotaxis in Los Angeles this month and has expanded its driverless taxi service in San Francisco and Phoenix; Waymo states it serves tens of thousands of trips each week in both markets.
California regulators in August allowed Waymo to charge for driverless rides in San Francisco at all hours. Since then, the company has created its Waymo One app available for more people to apply to hail driverless rides in the city, though applyrs first must sign up for the company’s waitlist.
Waymo last week allowed all active applyrs to hail rides during the day to San Francisco’s dense northeast quadrant. The company vies to eventually provide driverless ride hail service to San Francisco International Airport and expand to freeways in Phoenix. Company officials state Waymo plans to launch and deploy its driverless technology in new markets rapider than it did in San Francisco and Phoenix.
Those plans for more aggressive expansion illustrate Waymo’s pressures to turn a profit after a decade of developing and testing its driverless cars.
Reach Ricardo Cano: ricardo.cano@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @ByRicardoCano
