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Faire is the latest tech company in the region to announce layoffs

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WATERLOO — Faire has laid off seven percent of its 1,200 employees as tech companies in Canada and the US continue to shed jobs.

The online wholesale marketplace platform moved into 60,000-square-feet of new office space on Willis Way in Waterloo during the pandemic, and has headquarters in both Waterloo and San Francisco.

After it was founded in 2017 the Faire quickly became a star of the startup economy, raising more than US $700 million in venture capital and achieving a valuation of $12.4 billion a year ago.

Online shopping surged to record levels during earlier stages of the pandemic, but consumer spending has slowed with the economy, brick-and-mortar retail shops reopened and venture capital is drying up. So venture-backed startups and fast-growing firms are cutting costs to make it through the expected recession.

Even well established tech companies are cutting. Last week Amazon announced it laid off 10,000 jobs and Kitchener-based ed-tech platform D2L laid off five percent of its workforce, or 60 people.

Canadians tech companies Hootsuite, DapperLab, VanHack, TealBook, Koho, Apollo Insurance, Properly, League and Symend have all announced layoffs in recent weeks and months.

Tony LaMantia, the head of the Waterloo Region Economic Development Corporation, said the cutbacks in the tech sector are a result of global economic conditions.

“Everyone is managing costs, valuations are cut — it’s not a surprise,” said LaMantia.

As the economy slows interest rates and inflation are both up. The size of venture capital investments in the region’s tech sector this year have been smaller, he said.

“On the positive front we are well diversified as a region, so we will get through it,” said LaMantia.

So far, the biggest tech companies in Waterloo Region, including Google, OpenText, eSentire, Netsuite, Arctic Wolf, SAP and McAfee have not announced any cuts.

“Our anchor tech companies, I have not seen anything yet,” said LaMantia. “”It doesn’t mean we won’t see anything at Google or elsewhere, but so far so good.”

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