Ride-hailing company Uber has fired nearly 3,700 employees (14 per cent of its workforce) via in a three-minute Zoom call last week.
Uber’s head of Phoenix Center of Excellence Ruffin Chaveleau was tasked with breaking the news that the app was letting thousands of its employees go. The majority of the laid-off employees were from customer service and recruitment teams.
Chaveleau told staff: ‘Our rides business is down by more than half. There is not enough work for many frontline customer support employees. [Hence], we are eliminating 3,500 frontline customer support roles.
‘Your role is impacted, and today will be your last working day with Uber. You will remain on the payroll until the date noted in your severance package,’ Chaveleau added.
“I know that this is incredibly hard to hear. No one wants to be on a call like this. With everyone remote and a change of this magnitude, we had to do this in a way that allowed us to tell you as quickly as possible so that you did not hear it from the rumour mill”, Chaveleau’s voice cracked as she announced this.
Uber posted a net loss of $2.9billion on Thursday and announced it was implementing a hiring freeze as well as cutting thousands of jobs from its corporate workforce.
The company expects to incur about $20 million in costs for severance and related charges.
CEO Dara Khosrowshahi will not be paid for the rest of the year. His salary was set for $1million in 2019 with a possible bonus of $2million.
A memo sent to staff on Wednesday saw Khosrowshahi hint that more cuts may be on the way.
