Illustrated by Gabriella Turrisi/Axios
Another technical staff announcement today sounded the alarm for a stubbornly healthy labor market overall.
News promotion: Amazon announced a hiring freeze, while Lyft, Stripe and Chime all announced layoffs over economic concerns.
- Ride-hailing company Lyft is laying off 13% of its employees.
- Co-founders John Zimmer and Logan Green blamed inflation and an economic slowdown in a staff memo, according to Bloomberg.
in the meantime, E-commerce payment processor Stripe announced Thursday that it will lay off about 14% of its workforce.
- The company’s management greatly overestimated the short-term growth of the Internet economy and underestimated the impact of a broader slowdown.
- “The world is changing again now,” CEO Patrick Collison wrote to employees. “We are facing stubborn inflation, energy shocks, rising interest rates, cut investment budgets and sparse start-up capital.”
- And Chime, a fintech company that relies heavily on millennial spending, told CNBC it plans to cut 12% of its 1,300 employees.
Separately, Amazon is extending a new hiring moratorium across its workforce, telling employees the economy is “in an uncertain place.”
- “We are facing an extraordinary macroeconomic environment and want to balance employment and investment with thinking about this economy,” Amazon HR chief Beth Galetti said, per CNBC. I wrote it in a note.
conspiracy: These announcements contrast with data suggesting the labor market remains strong despite the Federal Reserve’s aggressive tightening efforts.
- The new numbers show few layoffs and plenty of job openings through September.
- That data is historical, but more recent job market indicators (such as fewer people filing for unemployment) tell a similar story. Axios’ Neil Irwin and Courtenay Brown wrote this week:.
