Snapchat's owner to cut 10% of jobs

Snap, the parent of the Snapchat messaging app, said Monday that it would lay off more than 500 employees, joining other tech companies in a wave of new cost-cutting measures.

The layoffs amount to 10% of its global workforce; the majority will occur in the first quarter of 2024.

“We have made the difficult decision to restructure our team,” the company said in a securities filing, adding that it would take pretax charges of $55 million to $75 million, primarily for severance and related costs.

Amazon, Google and Microsoft have announced layoffs this year, after tens of thousands across the sector last year.

Snap laid off a small number of employees Friday, Business Insider reported.

The company is set to report earnings Tuesday. Cost-cutting measures at other companies have buoyed stock prices. Snap shares were trading about 2% lower before the market opened Monday.

Like other social media companies reliant on advertising, Snap has had a rough couple of years. Changes by Apple to its privacy policy in 2021 made it tougher for advertisers to track users — something that hurt Snap and also had a heavy effect on Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.

Snapchat, which has more than 400 million daily active users, experienced a revenue decline in the first two quarters of last year and only 5% growth in its most recently reported quarter, which ended Sept. 30.

In 2022, Snap cut 20% of its workforce, or 1,300 jobs, and discontinued at least six products. It let go nearly 20 product managers in November and in September shut a division that sells augmented reality products to businesses, laying off 170 people.