Mill Valley, California: Employee review site Glassdoor has laid off approximately 30% of its workforce. The company, which is owned by the the massive Japanese talent acquisition firm Recruit Holdings (Recruit also owns Indeed), appointed a new CEO in August, who started in January. Employees began to report on LinkedIn on May 7 that they at least 300 employees had been laid off:

Reached out to for comment, Glassdoor share the an internal email from Glassdoor CEO Christian Sutherland-Wong had sent to all Glassdoor employees. In it, he laid out the reasons for the layoffs.

COVID-19 has been one of the most extraordinary and unprecedented crises in all of modern history.  No one saw this coming and I certainly had not foreseen a crisis of this magnitude when we set our plans in January and February of this year. It has been gut wrenching to watch COVID-19 unfold and witness its impact on our business, let alone our lives. I shared with you that in March we saw negative double digit percentage impacts to traffic, direct sales and self-service. In April there was no improvement. Employers as a whole have dramatically reduced their recruiting, and it is not clear when this will recover.
The net impact of this is that we need to take more costs out of our business. To date, we have looked at every aspect of our business trying to find ways to save: We have cut program costs. We have paused hiring. We have not increased base pay. Additionally, I have taken a 50% pay reduction for the remainder of 2020, and members of the senior executive team have taken a pay reduction too.  But unfortunately, all of this was not enough.

The company reports it is setting up lay-off relief for impacted employees, including:

• Minimum of 3 months pay.
• Healthcare costs covered through Dec 31, 2020.
• Accelerated vesting of stock options through your severance period, for those with unvested stock options.
• Ability to keep their Glassdoor laptop to help with their job search.
• A range of job search support services including: access to experts to help with their job search, a resume writer, career assessment, and unlimited career coaching throughout the duration of their job search.

We will update with more news as we receive it.

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