Uber Is Laying Off 200 Employees In Recruitment Division

Uber has reduced its workforce by at least 17 per cent since the coronavirus pandemic began.

Ride-hailing giant Uber is laying off 200 jobs in its recruitment division as it implements cost-cutting measures and plans to keep the staff count flat through the year. The job cuts affect less than 1 per cent of Uber's 32,700 global staff and follow the ride-share company laying off 150 employees in its freight services division earlier this year, said a report by news agency Reuters.

Earlier in May, the company had announced it would maintain a flat workforce. Uber has expressed confidence in achieving operating income profitability by the end of this year. The latest job cuts target 35 per cent of Uber's recruiting team, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. The company has reduced its workforce by at least 17 per cent since the coronavirus pandemic began. In 2020, Uber laid off around 6,700 jobs in two big rounds of job cuts.

After it laid off 3,500 of its workforce via a Zoom call, the ride-sharing firm in May 2020 announced it was cutting 3,000 more jobs in its second round of layoffs. In the first quarter (Q1) of this year, the ride-hailing major Uber reported a 24 per cent increase in trips to 2.1 billion, or approximately 24 million trips per day on average.

The company significantly accelerated Q1 trip growth to 24 per cent from 19 per cent last quarter, with "mobility trip growth of 32 per cent as a result of improved earnings and consumer engagement", according to Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.

"Looking ahead, we are focused on extending our product, scale and platform advantages to sustain market-leading top and bottom-line growth beyond 2023," he said during the company's quarterly earnings call.

For Q2 2023, Uber anticipates gross bookings of $33 billion to $34 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $800 million to $850 million.

Meanwhile, Uber rival Lyft, under new CEO David Risher has also let go of roughly 26 per cent of its total workforce in April and about 700 employees late last year, as it struggled to protect margins.