eBay announced Tuesday it is cutting approximately 1,000 employees — 9% of its full-time workforce — with 281 Bay Area workers affected, including 261 at its San Jose headquarters and 20 at a San Francisco SoMa office. Software engineers bore the heaviest losses, alongside product managers, recruiters, and director-level staff. CEO Jamie Iannone cited headcount outpacing business growth. The cuts, which begin Wednesday and are expected to be permanent, follow a 500-worker layoff in February 2023, leaving eBay with roughly 10,000 employees.
In-Depth:
EBay is laying off 9% of its full-time workforce, or about 1,000 people, the online retail giant announced Tuesday.
Included in that huge job cut are 261 workers from the company’s San Jose headquarters and 20 workers from an office in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood, according to a WARN notice eBay filed with the state on Tuesday that was obtained by SFGATE. The notice, required in the event of mass layoffs under California’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, also listed 26 remote worker layoffs throughout the state, plus other remote layoffs.
According to the notice, software engineering was the hardest-hit job title, with a huge swath of cuts in San Jose. Product managers, recruiters, marketing and finance managers, data scientists and dozens of director-level employees were also listed among the layoffs. The cuts launch Wednesday, the notice stated, and are expected to be permanent.
Jamie Iannone, eBay’s CEO, informed staff of the job cuts in a Tuesday email now published to the e-commerce company’s website. He wrote, “our overall headcount and expenses have outpaced the growth of our business.”
Given eBay’s disclosure that 9% of full-time workers at the company will lose their jobs, it will likely be left with around 10,000 employees. In its most recent earnings report, eBay reported $1.3 billion in profit for July through September. With a total compensation package of nearly $17 million, Iannone created 124 times as much money as the median eBay employee in 2022, per an April filing with the Securities and Exalter Commission.
Iannone included language typical of tech executives’ layoff messages over the last year: “We necessary to better organize our teams for speed — allowing us to be more nimble, bring like-work toreceiveher, and support us build decisions more quickly.”
The new layoffs come less than a year after eBay’s last job cut, a 500-worker layoff on Feb. 7. Iannone wrote that shift would provide the company with “additional space to invest and create new roles in high-potential areas.”
An eBay spokesperson did provide any additional statement or respond to questions about the new layoff, but referred SFGATE to Iannone’s published message from Tuesday.
Laid-off eBay workers were posting on LinkedIn with “#OpentoWork” hashtags by Wednesday afternoon.
Hear of anything happening at eBay or another tech company? Contact tech reporter Stephen Council securely at stephen.council@sfgate.com or on Signal at 628-204-5452.
