In an SEC filing last week, Groupon said that it had fired another 500 workers to save money. In August 2022, the e-commerce company had cut 500 jobs, which was almost 15% of its workforce.
The company said that this new round of layoffs will happen over the first two quarters of this year.
“On January 25, 2023, the Board of Directors of Groupon, Inc. approved the second phase of the Company’s multi-phase restructuring plan. This plan is part of the Company’s comprehensive cost-saving plan, which was announced in August 2022. In this second phase, Groupon plans to cut about 500 jobs around the world. The majority of these cuts are expected to happen by the end of the second quarter of 2023, the company said in a filing.
The latest round of cuts will affect almost 20% of the company’s workers. As of late December, the company was said to have 2,500 workers.
Groupon has faced a number of problems over the years, from more competition to a smaller number of customers. Statista says that in Q1 2022, 22.1 million people bought at least one offer on the site. This is a big drop from Q1 2014, when 53.9 million people bought something.
Several employees have talked about the layoff on LinkedIn over the past week. Kristen Barbor, the company’s Chief People Officer, said, “Groupon had to say goodbye to a number of very talented teammates in NAM at all levels of leadership.”
In its filing with the SEC, the company said that by cutting jobs, it would save millions of dollars each year.
“The actions taken for payroll as part of the second phase of the 2022 Restructuring Plan are expected to save about $70 million per year in costs. The company also plans to do other things in the 2022 Cost Savings Plan that don’t have to do with payroll, such as lowering the costs of technology, software, and some professional services. Cost savings of an extra $30 million per year are expected from these actions,” it said.
Groupon stock has dropped by more than 72% in the past year.