Lyft Lays Off 982 Employees, Furloughs 288, Cuts Exec Pay

Lyft, the San Francisco-based ridesharing company, has laid off 17 percent of its workforce and imposed salary reductions for executives for three months, CNBC reported.

The company said it will lay off 982 employees and furlough an additional 288 to trim operating costs due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition, starting in May, Lyft said it will impose a 30 percent reduction in pay for executive leadership, 20 percent for vice presidents and 10 percent for all other exempt employees, the company announced on Wednesday (April 29) in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

At 12:30 p.m., Lyft stock was up by 4.3 percent as shares rose to $34.17, a 1.4 percent increase, according to Yahoo! Finance.

The SEC documents revealed Lyft expects to incur as much as $36 million from the layoffs due to employee severance and benefits packages.

Lyft’s announcement comes three months after the company laid off 90 employees, or 1.6 percent of its workforce. The New York Times reported that the layoffs raised questions about the company’s ability to stem its losses and demonstrate profitability. At the time, Lyft denied it was part of a broader corporate restructuring.

“We’ve carefully evaluated the resources we need to achieve our 2020 business goals, and the restructuring of some of our teams reflects that,” a spokesperson said in January. “We are still growing rapidly and plan to hire more than 1,000 new employees this year.”

On Tuesday (April 28), PYMNTS reported that Uber is facing the prospect of laying off 20 percent of its workforce. While the company has not said whether the staff reduction is a certainty, it could result in the loss of more than 5,400 workers, or 20 percent of the company’s 27,000 positions.