Etsy has joined the rising listing of corporations to put off staff within the lead-up to Christmas—and its CEO tried to water down the dangerous information with a crusing metaphor.
The web market instructed 225 staff that they are going to be out of a job within the New Yr, through a livestream on Wednesday.
Moments after asserting the 11% headcount discount, its chief government Josh Silverman described the day as “one of the hardest we’ve experienced at Etsy” whereas making an attempt to rally the employees who weren’t minimize.
“The waters may be rough right now,” he wrote in an inner memo. “But there’s no other ship I’d rather be on, and no other crew I’d rather be with, as we weather this cycle and emerge even stronger on the other side.”
Though Silverman acknowledged the “unfortunate” timing of the cost-cutting measure—provided that Christmas is simply two weeks away—he doubled down that he needed to speak the choice with staff “as soon as possible” and head into 2024 with a brand new technique for progress.
“While the Etsy marketplace is still more than double the size it was in 2019, we need to acknowledge and adjust for today’s realities,” he wrote. “We are operating in a very challenging macro and competitive environment, and GMS (gross merchandise sales) has remained essentially flat since 2021.”
“This is ultimately not a sustainable trajectory and we must change it,” he added. “As we head into 2024, we have identified our ‘Vital Few’ projects and initiatives that we believe will reignite growth for our sellers and drive buyer consideration and loyalty through a focus on quality, value, and reliability.”
All laid-off workers will stay on Etsy’s payroll till “at least” 2 January, based on the memo. In the meantime, the transfer will price the corporate between $25m and $30m in severance funds, worker advantages and associated prices, Etsy revealed in an announcement to investors.
Etsy didn’t reply to Fortune’s request for remark.
Christmas layoffs
The primary 11 months of 2023 have been rife with layoffs and regardless of the holly jolly merriments, the vacation season isn’t any completely different.
Earlier this week, Hasbro—the toymaker behind Monopoly, Play-Doh, and Dungeons & Dragons—introduced it’s going to minimize round 1,100 jobs attributable to stronger-than-expected “market headwinds”.
“The headwinds we saw through the first nine months of the year have continued into Holiday and are likely to persist into 2024,” CEO Chris Cocks introduced in a memo, whereas including that job cuts are “a lever we must pull to keep Hasbro healthy.”
In the meantime, the biggest credit score union on this planet, Nationwide, equally introduced layoffs final week, with practically 500 employees impacted by the cost-cutting measure.
For workers working on the firm, it was the second spherical of dangerous information within the lead-up to Christmas as Nationwide’s new CEO additionally scrapped her predecessor’s “work from anywhere” policy simply days earlier than.
Finally, staff at tech corporations have been hit the toughest by layoffs this yr, as pandemic darlings have been pressured to cut back after happening a hiring binge when lockdowns sparked an uptick in tech utilization.
In 2023, greater than 257,000 jobs have been slashed within the tech trade alone, based on Layoffs.fyi, with the likes of Meta, Google, and Spotify making important reductions to their workforce this yr. Initially of December, Spotify ushered in its third spherical of job cuts this yr.
