Dropbox lays off 16% of staff, with 500 workers losing their jobs, mentioning the slowdown of growth and AI

Per CNBC

Dropbox has announced that it will let go of 16% of its workforce, with 500 workers losing their jobs. This came in an official message from the company's CEO, Drew Houston.

Houston: "I'm writing to share that I’ve made the difficult decision to reduce our global workforce by about 16%, or 500 Dropboxers."

The CEO also said that he recognized the impacts of the company's decision and that those impacted would get a calendar invitation for a 1:1 with their team leader and a People team member.

Houston also shared the explanation as to why the company was making the decision, with the first being that the company's growth has been slowing. It was said that despite this being partly because of natural maturation, some positions are no longer sustainable, though they used to have positive returns.

The company also mentioned AI, saying the "AI era of computing" has arrived and taht they believe it would give them superpowers and transform the knowledge work.

Houston: "In an ideal world, we’d simply shift people from one team to another. And we’ve done that wherever possible. However, our next stage of growth requires a different mix of skill sets, particularly in AI and early-stage product development."

Gap started its layoffs, saying it would let go of hundreds of positions from its global workforce. The new layoffs are expected to axe more than its previous round of layoffs in September, which saw 500 corporate rules exited.

Aside from Gap, Stellantis is also expected to start its own round of layoffs, saying it would eliminate 3,500 hourly jobs ahead of a United Auto Workers (UAW) contract expiration. Per a letter sent to the UAW, it was noted that there would be two incentive packages given.

The first would see employees that were hired before 2007 receive $50,000, and those that had at least a year of seniority receive a lump sum.

See flow at unusualwhales.com/flow.

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