PayPal To Cut Headcount By 9%

(RTTNews) - Online payment platform, PayPal's (PYPL) CEO Alex Chriss informed the employees in an internal memo that the company will be laying off 9 percent of its workforce or around 2,500 jobs, citing the need to push towards AI technology.

Chriss said the lay-offs will affect the existing jobs as well as job listings that the company had planned to hire for, over the year. He further added that the affected employees will be informed by the end of the week.

The CEO explained the move by saying, "We need to drive more focus and efficiency, deploy automation, and consolidate our technology to reduce complexity and duplication."

Last week, PayPal infused artificial intelligence features into the platform by introducing a faster checkout experience, AI-powered merchant recommendations for customers and a consumer app overhaul. Chriss called the new features as the beginning of PayPal's "next chapter."

Last year, the San Jose-based company had cut 2,000 roles.

According to Layoffs.fyi, 98 tech companies have laid off more than 25,000 employees so far in 2024. Last year, more than 1,100 companies had cut 262,595 roles.