Zoom Video Communications Inc. laid off 15% of its employees as the ubiquitous service during the pandemic adapted to slower growth.
The company will cut about 1,300 jobs as part of the restructuring, CEO Eric Yuan said Tuesday in a blog post. Yuan called himself “responsible” for the company’s problems and said he would cut salaries and forgo bonuses.
“Our trajectory was forever changed during the pandemic,” Yuan said, adding that Zoom’s headcount doubled in two years. “We don’t need a lot of time because we need to fully analyze the team or assess whether we are growing sustainably.”
The reductions are a larger share of the workforce than cuts announced at enterprise software companies including Salesforce Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Workday Inc. The stock rose 10% on the news to $84.87. The stock had fallen 47% in the 12 months to Monday’s close.
After gaining millions of users at the peak of the pandemic, Zoom is now trying to reverse its slow growth by developing tools for businesses. Still, it has reported single-digit revenue growth for the last two quarters, and analysts project that sales continue to decline in the current quarter.
Yuan, the founder of the San Jose, California-based company, said that his base salary, which was $301,731 last year, will be cut by 98% and will give him a company bonus for fiscal year 2023. Total compensation for fiscal year 2022 is $1.1 million, according to submission of May 2022. Others in the executive leadership will take a 20% reduction in basic salary.
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