Bird plans to lay off 23% of staff – TechCrunch

Shared micromobility company Bird plans to layoff 23% of its staff, according to tech layoff tracker Layoffs.fyi.

The tech tracker attributes the news of the layoffs to an internal memo, but certain LinkedIn posts from former Bird employees confirm the news.

We hate to say it, but we saw this coming, and not just because of the sweeping layoffs across the tech space that saw 16,000 tech workers lose their jobs last month. When Bird revealed its first quarter 2022 earnings in May, the company said it plans to “streamline and consolidate its resourcing against its core business” in order to get closer to profitable margins.

Part of that plan manifested in Bird pausing on its retail operations — Bird had previously been pushing sales of its own e-bikes and e-scooters. But as we reported last month, layoffs were also to be expected.

Last month, Bird did not confirm whether layoffs were in the company’s future, and it did not respond in time to requests for more information from TechCrunch.

At the time of this writing, Bird has 1,041 employees on LinkedIn, although that number has likely decreased since the release of the internal memo. That said, 23% of 1,041 means about 240 Bird workers are going to be looking for work. Layoffs.fyi shows that most of the layoffs will be happening in Los Angeles, but TechCrunch is still working to confirm.

This isn’t the first time Bird, which went public via SPAC last November, has had to resort to mass layoffs. A little over two years ago, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bird also laid off 30% of its employees, or about 406 people.

This story is still developing. Check back in for updates.