Stock: A group of women using the Zoom video conferencing application
(Picture: PA Archive)Zoom has announced plans to lay off 15% of its global workforce, around 1,300 workers.
In a blog post Tuesday addressed to “Zoomies”, CEO Eric Yuan said the cull was necessary because the world was transitioning to “life post-pandemic”.
The video-calling company experienced a boom during the pandemic as remote working took off, but now says it made “mistakes” in scaling up so fast.
Mr Yuan said: “We worked tirelessly and made Zoom better for our customers and users. But we also made mistakes.
“We didn’t take as much time as we should have to thoroughly analyse our teams or assess if we were growing sustainably, toward the highest priorities.”
As a result, he had to take the “tough but necessary decision” to reduce numbers by 15%.
Mr Yuan said he was “accountable” for mistakes and that he wanted to show accountability by reducing his salary by 98% for the upcoming fiscal year and forgoing bonuses.
Members of the company’s leadership team will also reduce their base salaries by 20%.
He told workers: “My commitment to you is that we will make sure the changes we are making to our team today are not made in vain.
“We will learn from the past to set ourselves up for future success, and redouble our efforts to help evolve Zoom to tomorrow.”
Shares in the firm jumped more than 8% following the announcement.
Other big companies such as Amazon and Salesforce have also announced big job cuts in recent weeks, saying they needed to adapt to life after the pandemic.
