Skip to content

Robinhood is laying off 23% of its employees. Here are other tech layoffs you should know about

While some fear that a recession may be around the corner, some possible effects are already visible. Unemployment claims jumped from 7,000 to more than 250,000 in July, an eight-month high, Labor Department data showed.

Meanwhile, the personal consumption expenditures price index, which tracks the prices of food, energy and other commodities, rose 9.1% in the past year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The possibility of a recession — described as “a period of temporary decline observed throughout the economy” by Christian vom Lehn, associate professor of economics at Brigham Young University — is forcing tech companies to slow down hiring and consider layoffs.

Robinhood lays off big chunk of workforce

Robinhood, an investing platform, was the latest company to announce layoffs, slashing 23% of its workforce after letting go of 9% of its employees in April.

CEO Vlad Tenev pointed to the “deterioration of the macro environment, with inflation at 40-year highs accompanied by a broad crypto market crash” as the reason for layoffs in a blog post on the company website.

Tech companies that laid off employees last month

Here is a list of tech companies that announced layoffs in the month of July:

  1. Oracle: The Information reported the company has laid off an unknown number of employees in the US customer experience unit, with more cuts in Canada, India and parts of Europe to follow suit, putting the ballpark number in the “thousands.”
  2. Vox Media: The publishing company carried out its fourth round of cuts since 2018, letting go of 39 employees because of “supply chain issues reducing marketing and advertising budgets across industries and economic pressures changing the ways that consumers spend,” Vox Media CEO Jim Bankoff wrote in a memo to staff, per Axios.
  3. Shopify: The Canadian E-commerce platform is cutting 10% of its workforce — around 1,000 employees — mostly in departments like recruiting, support and sales, according to The New York Times.
  4. Vimeo: The video platform’s CEO Anjali Sud announced a 6% staff cut. Sud did not indicate exactly how many employees or across what departments.
  5. OpenSea: Blaming the “crypto winter and broad macroeconomic instability,” OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer announced that the company was laying off 20% of its workforce. According to TechCrunch, this will affect 230 employees.
  6. LoanDepot: Chopping off a large chunk of its 11,300 employee workforce, the company plans to lay off 42% of its workers. According to The Real Deal, the company expects to save close to $400 million.
  7. GoPuff: This instant delivery startup announced it was laying off 1,500 employees, or 10% of its global workforce, while it closed 76 warehouses in the US in July.
  8. Twitter: In early July, the social media giant laid off 30% of its talent acquisition team as the deal with Elon Musk was still pending, per CNN. The news came after the company announced in May that it would pause hiring and cut costs.

Tech layoffs in June

Here are a few notable companies that made cuts in June:

  1. Tesla laid off 200 employees.
  2. Netflix cut 300 employees.
  3. Redfin and Compass slashed 10% and 8% of their workforce, respectively.
  4. Coinbase let go of 18% of its employees.
  5. Clubhouse let go of an unknown portion of its workforce.