Uber is laying off 3,000 employees in the latest round of COVID-19-inspired cost-cutting, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in an email to staff. The news, which was first reported over the weekend by The Wall Street Journal, comes as the ride-hailing company has seen an 80 percent drop in its ride-hailing business as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
“We have to take these hard actions to stand strong on our own two feet, to secure our future, and to continue on our mission,” Khosrowshahi said in the email.
The move comes less than two weeks after Uber laid off 3,700 employees, or 14 percent of its global workforce.
The pain of COVID-19 is being felt across the ride-hailing industry. Lyft, Uber’s main rival, recently announced that it would be laying off nearly 1,000 employees, or about 17 percent of its workforce. Careem, Uber’s Middle Eastern subsidiary, slashed headcount by more than 30 percent and suspended its bus transport app.
In the March call, Khosrowshahi said the company modeled “an extreme edge case” in which trip volume plummeted 80 percent. Even in that dire circumstance — which has since come to pass — Uber would still end the year with $4 billion in unrestricted cash, plus $2 billion in revolving credit.
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