PayPal to Lay Off 2,500 Workers as Company Battles Rising Competition

Alex Chriss, CEO of PayPal, confirmed that the company will eliminate another 2,500 jobs, or 9% of its global workforce, a year after making a similar move to cut costs.

The digital payments giant reported that those affected will be notified by the end of the week.

PayPal Cuts 25,000 Jobs

Chriss informed the staff that the company has decided to "right-size" through direct reductions and eliminating open roles. Intuit, a software giant, hired Chriss last year to assist in turning around PayPal.

PayPal faces increasing competition from rivals such as Apple, Zelle, and Block. Investors hoped he could turn around the company's share price, which had dropped by more than 20% in the past 12 months.

In November, PayPal released its first earnings under its new CEO, which exceeded analysts' expectations and gave investors hope that the company was starting to turn things around.

Last week, the company introduced a one-click checkout feature and new artificial intelligence-driven products.

The most recent layoffs come after tens of thousands of layoffs by other technology giants in recent months. The technology industry employment tracker website Layoffs.fyi reported that over 260,000 jobs were lost in the sector last year.

Almost 100 tech firms, including Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, TikTok, and Salesforce, have announced 25,000 job cutbacks in the previous month.

Block, led by Twitter's co-founder Jack Dorsey, started reducing staff this week and will cut its workforce by 1,000 by the end of the year.

Last year, executives blamed employment losses on the pandemic hiring spree and soaring inflation, which caused a decline in consumer demand.

However, some technology industry workers are retaliating. A union representing workers at Google said earlier this month that the tech giant's decision to eliminate hundreds of positions was "needless" given its billions of dollars in annual revenue.

Paypal Plans To Cut 7% Of Workforce — (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA - JANUARY 30: A PayPal sign is seen at its headquarters on January 30, 2024, in San Jose, California. PayPal announced plans to lay off 2,000 employees or 7 percent of its workforce.

Tencent's Riot Games Cuts 11% of Global Workforce

Riot Games, the creator of popular video games like 'League of Legends' and 'Valorant,' is the latest tech company to lay off 11% of its workforce globally.

The Chinese tech giant Tencent purchased Riot in 2011, years after the Shenzhen-based group granted the rights to license its flagship title, 'League of Legends,' in mainland China.

On Monday, the Tencent-owned Los Angeles-based company released the news, which described the move to eliminate roughly 530 posts as "critical for the future of Riot."

The publisher justified the action in a memo to staff members, blaming it on spiraling expenses and risky investments that had failed.

"We have to do more to focus our business and center our efforts on the things that drive the most player value - the things that are truly worth players' time," CEO Dylan Jadeja wrote.

The layoffs at Riot are part of a larger wave of job losses in American media and technology that have already impacted thousands of workers this month.