(QCOSTARICA) Uber said Wednesday it will lay off 14% of its 26,900 employees to its customer support and recruiting teams. The announcement was made in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Uber has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. Uber’s as global gross bookings are down 80%, according to a report from The Information last month.
The layoff, in real numbers, affects some 3,700 employees across the globe, including Costa Rica.
In the announcement, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said he will forgo his base salary (US$1 million dollars in 2019) for the rest of the year and hinted in a memo to employees Wednesday that more cost cuts are on the way.
In Costa Rica, Uber opened the Uber Center of Excellence for Latin America with 800 direct jobs (more than 50% are occupied by women), within the framework of an investment of more than US$30 million in the last four years.
The Costa Rica operation, serving 170 cities in 15 Latin American countries, is dedicated to safeguarding the safety of the people transported and their belongings during the trips requested through the Uber and Uber Eats platforms.
According to an open letter to Costa Rica in January, Uber said it had 971,000 users and had 28,000 collaborating partners (drivers) in the country, “facilitating the mobility not only of Costa Ricans, but also of tourists visiting Costa Rica from more than 77 countries in the world.”
Uber Costa Rica has declined to confirm how many workers will be laid off in the country.
The company said in a statement: “With fewer people taking trips, the unfortunate reality is that there is not enough work for many of our employees who support front-line customers. Since we don’t know how long a recovery will take, we are taking steps to align our costs with the current size of the business. This was a difficult decision, but it is the right one to help protect the company’s health in the long term and ensure that we emerge stronger from this crisis”.
On April 16, Business Wire reported that Uber Technologies, Inc. will hold its quarterly conference call to discuss its financial results for the first quarter of 2020 on Thursday, May 7, 2020, at 1:30 pm Pacific Time (2:30 pm Costa Rica time).
In the memo Khosrowshahi sent to employees, he said: “I wanted to let you know that we just announced the elimination of around 3,700 roles in CommOps and Recruiting, and the closure of 40% of our Greenlight locations (…) Given this news, and since we have Q1′20 earnings tomorrow, I thought it would be good to get everyone together again on Friday for a Global All Hands, where we can walk through our financial results and today’s changes, and can continue to answer your questions as openly as possible. Keep an eye out for an invite soon.”
Given that much of the world is currently under some form of lockdown due to the new coronavirus pandemic, the company announced that it anticipates an accounting deterioration in some of its minority capital investments.
