Tech Layoffs – Social Media Company Pinterest Makes Organizational Change, Trims Workforce by 5%

Image sharing and social media company Pinterest in a recent organizational change has trimmed its workforce by 5%, laying off almost 150 employees.

This is the company’s second round of layoffs after it carried out its first round in December last year. In the third quarter (Q3), the company had about 4,000 employees, with its recent layoffs, this will see the number significantly reduced.

Speaking on its recent layoffs of some members of its workforce, a spokesperson at the company said,

“We’re making organizational changes to further set us up to deliver against our company priorities and our long-term strategy. Our employees are the heart of how we’re able to serve our Pinners around the world.

“All of the employees who were impacted contributed to Pinterest and as they transition, we’re committed to supporting them with separation packages, benefits, and other services.”

Recall last year November, also shut down its ‘creator rewards’ program which allowed content creators to earn money through monthly prompts and achieve certain engagement goals. According to them, this was to focus on other creator programs and features.

Also, due to the recent economic downturn, few other social media companies have been constantly tweaking their creator payment programs in recent times.

Companies such as Snapchat reduced its payouts to creators from millions of dollars per week to millions of dollars per year, Meta announced the closure of its Live Shopping program to focus on reels, also, Instagram closed its affiliate program, which allowed creators to get a commission if users purchased tagged products from their post

Pinterest joins the list of tech companies that have undertaken layoffs in the past few months as they seek to navigate the current economic downturn.

The image-sharing company witnessed a decline in its advertising budgets because of decades-high inflation that ravaged the earnings of online players from Alphabet, to Meta Platforms and Snap.

No doubt, the tech industry is reeling from a seemingly nonstop parade of layoffs across Silicon Valley and beyond. So far 256 tech companies have laid off 82769 employees in 2023.

According to a Crunchbase News tally, more than 58,000 workers in U.S.-based tech companies have been laid off in mass job cuts so far in 2023, with the tech sector making up 2.8% of total U.S. employment.

Big giant tech companies like Spotify, Intel Amazon, Meta, TikTok, Microsoft, IBM, Luno, Alphabet, and many others have also been affected by the economic downturn, causing them to cut down a big chunk of their workforce.