The cuts keep coming at WeWork.
The beleaguered office-space provider on Thursday laid off employees in the sales, physical product and operations departments, Business Insider reported. The total number of layoffs was not immediately clear, but the latest round of pink slips follows hundreds of cuts in recent months.
In November, after a failed attempt to go public, WeWork laid off thousands. There were two other rounds of cuts announced in March.
WeWork’s CEO Sandeep Mathrani said last month that the cuts would conclude at the end of May. Those let go received severance pay of four months of salary and benefits.
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SoftBank, WeWork’s biggest backer, said this week that it is expecting a $6.6 billion loss on its investment in the office company (outside of SoftBank’s Vision Fund). WeWork sued Softbank after the conglomerate backed out of an agreement to buy $3 billion WeWork shares — due to “multiple, new and significant pending criminal and civil investigations,” SoftBank said at the time.
WeWork is among many flexible-office providers taking cost-cutting measures as of late. Office firm Knotel, which was already in a precarious financial situation, laid off half its 400-person staff in March and skipped April rent on three of its New York City locations. Industrious, too, laid off a third of its staff.
WeWork has also kept all of its U.S. locations open during the coronavirus pandemic, saying its spaces are still being used by essential businesses. Though the company had already been aiming to reduce rent costs before the health crisis, in early April, it tapped JLL and Newmark to help renegotiate leases. [Business Insider] — Georgia Kromrei