Pinterest, Okta among three more tech firms to trim staff
Three more San Francisco tech companies announced they planned to cut staff Thursday, as near-daily news of tech layoffs in San Francisco and the Bay Area continues.
Password and log-in security company Okta said it would cut about 300 employees, around 5% of its workforce, while Bloomberg reported social sharing company Pinterest would cut 150 employees. In an emailed statement, a Pinterest spokesperson did not confirm the details of the layoffs or severance packages but confirmed the company was cutting some jobs.
Both are public companies with multibillion-dollar market caps.
Digital whiteboard site Miro also said it would cut 119 employees, about 7% of its total full-time staff, according to a note from the company’s CEO.
In a note to employees Thursday, Okta CEO Todd McKinnon called the decision difficult, adding, “A workforce reduction like this is the last thing I wanted to do, and I am truly sorry.”
McKinnon said the company had entered the current fiscal year planning to see the same demand for its services as it had the year before. “This led us to over-hire for the macroeconomic reality we’re in today,” he wrote. “I wish I had responded sooner, but we’re doing the best we can today to adjust to this reality.”
The company’s shares jumped in Thursday morning trading on the news of the layoffs. Pinterest’s stock also crept up in morning trading after the news broke.
McKinnon said employees would get a minimum of 13 weeks of severance, health care through June 30 and a range of other benefits.
In its statement, Pinterest said “We’re making organizational changes to further set us up to deliver against our company priorities and our long-term strategy. As a result, we made the difficult decision to say goodbye to some of our team members.” The company added, “we’re committed to supporting them with separation packages, benefits and other services.”
Economists have pointed out that many cuts in tech have been significant, but are often companies bringing their headcounts back to prepandemic levels after hiring sprees induced by more demand for their services during the pandemic.
The California Employment Development Department said in an email it had not yet received a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification from any of the three companies. Businesses must give 60 days’ notice to the state and their employees when they undertake cuts of a certain size.
Miro CEO Andrey Khusid said the cuts at his company would impact all areas of the business, but were “absolutely not a reflection on these teams’ hard work and dedication, but simply reflects the needs of our business going forward.”
He said the recruiting team would see significant cuts, since the company was pulling back on hiring for the near future, adding, in a lengthy note, that travel, some program budgets and large-scale internal events would see less funding.
Khusid said employees being laid off lost their access to company systems Thursday, but would get 14 weeks of severance at a minimum, along with a lump-sum payment to cover six months of health care expenses.
The cuts come after a week of daily tech layoffs news. San Jose payments company PayPal said on Tuesday it would cut 2,000 workers, while data software company Splunk announced it would cut 4% of its workforce on Wednesday.
Other Marquee tech companies, including Twitter, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google parent Alphabet, have previously announced significant workforce cuts this year, starting late last year and running into 2023.