Indeed laid off approximately 1,000 employees Monday, or about 8% of the company, Indeed CEO Chris Hyams announced May 13 in a letter to employees, a move driven in part by “a global slow-down in hiring,” the message said.
The vast majority of the layoffs were in the U.S., Hyams said, largely within R&D and the go-to-market teams.
“While the global economy has improved in several areas over the past year, we are not yet set up for sustainable growth,” Hyams said. “Despite our efforts so far, our organization is still too complex,” he continued, indicating that the company is aiming to “simplify” areas of the business to make decision-making faster.
Indeed laid off about 15% of its workforce in March of last year, or around 2,200 people, in response to tanking job postings. Hyams also took a reduction in base pay at that time.
Those measures worked, he said, and Indeed is operating with stable profitability but now needs to “reignite growth.” Notably, the company flubbed the roll-out of one of its more experimental payment schemes since the start of the pandemic, stakeholders said previously told HR Dive. Pay per application, which would have allowed employers only to pay for accepted applications from approved candidates, ran into a number of roadblocks with clients when it was first rolled out in 2022. For example, many small businesses did not have the capacity to handle approval of applications before they would be billed in the thousands, one expert said at the time.
After a year of re-explaining and re-clarifying the model, Indeed discontinued pay-per-application entirely in December 2023. Indeed indicated at the time it would focus on the potential of AI tools for recruiters and job seekers moving forward.