Job sites Indeed, Glassdoor to cut workforces

Job posting site Indeed will reportedly lay off 2,200 people from its global staff, around 15 percent of the company, CEO Chris Hyams told employees Wednesday and in a note posted to the company’s site.

Indeed’s announcement came as tech companies large and small including Meta, Amazon, Google and others have cut thousands of jobs since late last year.

It was not immediately clear how many of the affected jobs are in San Francisco, where the company has offices on Mission Street, or in the Bay Area more broadly. The California Employment Development Department said it had not received a WARN notice of the layoffs from Indeed, which are required under state law when an employer cuts at least 50 employees during any 30-day period.

The company said last year that it had about 14,600 employees and is owned by Japan’s Recruit Co. Ltd.

“The cuts come from nearly every team, function, level and region at Indeed and Indeed Flex,” the company’s database of part-time and temporary jobs, Hyams wrote. He said affected employees would be paid through the end of the month, but their last day of employment would be Wednesday and they would lose access to work systems before the end of the day.

Hyams said laid-off workers will get 16 weeks of base salary, or two weeks for every year they have worked at the company, whichever is greater, as well as four months of COBRA coverage for U.S. employees.

He said where applicable they will be paid for outstanding time off and receive cash compensation for restricted stock units scheduled to vest on May 1, with different rules for employees whose initial grant date was Aug. 1 of last year or later.

Affected employees will get ongoing career placement services for six months and mental health services for 12 months. Laid-off employees will also be allowed to keep their laptops and receive January through March bonuses.

After a historically hot hiring market in tech during the pandemic, Hyams said the company expected that to slow, which would affect Indeed’s revenues.

“Last quarter, U.S. total job openings were down 3.5 percent year over year, while sponsored job volumes were down 33 percent.” Hyams wrote, adding, “In the U.S., we are expecting job openings will likely decrease to pre-pandemic levels of about 7.5 million, or even lower over the next two to three years.”

He said with expected future job openings at those levels, “our organization is simply too big for what lies ahead.”

Hyams added that he took responsibility for the cuts, apologizing and saying he would take a 25 percent cut in his base pay.

“Additionally, more than 75 percent of my total compensation is directly tied to Indeed revenue growth, and is at risk given current trends,” Hyams added. “We will be instituting additional cost saving measures moving forward, which I will outline tomorrow.”

Company ratings site Glassdoor, which opened a refurbished headquarters in San Francisco last year and is also owned by Recruit Co. Ltd., will also cut 15 percent of its workforce, about 140 people, according to a note on the company’s site published by CEO Christian Sutherland-Wong.

Glassdoor sent a notice to the Employment Development Department saying 44 of the affected employees were based in its San Francisco office or working remotely in California, although the company noted it did not believe it had triggered the state’s WARN provisions. Affected job titles included software and machine learning engineers, product designers, payroll specialists, sales positions and others.

“This outcome is devastating, and please know that we made all attempts to control costs to avoid this. We paused hiring. We cut program costs. We cut travel and events. Unfortunately, this was not enough,” he wrote, adding affected employees will receive 16 weeks of pay and healthcare for four months, among other benefits.

Sutherland-Wong said sponsored job postings on the site are down, along with other metrics.

“It has become increasingly clear that this is just the beginning of a broader economic slowdown, as the job market cools after the post-COVID boom,” he added.