Lyft to lay off more than 1,000 employees in cost-cut push

Ride-hailing agency Lyft Inc stated it should lay off about 1,072 workers, or 26% of its workforce, in one of many first steps by the brand new Chief Executive David Risher, sending its shares up by about 1% on Thursday.

Risher, who took over earlier this month, had lately stated the corporate will “significantly” reduce jobs, with out offering the variety of jobs that will be affected.

Lyft will even get rid of greater than 250 open positions and incur about US$41 million to $47 million in prices associated to severance and worker advantages within the second quarter, it stated in an alternate submitting.

It will even take extra prices associated to stock-based compensations, which it stated can’t be estimated on the time.

The cash saved from job cuts can be used to help “service-level improvements” for riders and drivers, Lyft stated, promising to supply extra particulars in its first-quarter earnings name on May 4.

This is the second spherical of job cuts by Lyft, which faces competitors from larger rival Uber Technologies Inc in a slowing financial system. It had laid off about 683 workers, or 13% of its then workforce, in November.

Coming off pandemic lows, Uber and Lyft are locked in a battle for market share, and traders fear that Lyft’s value cuts to keep away from being a distant second within the North American ride-sharing market would squeeze its revenue.

Lyft’s inventory has up to now this yr misplaced 8.6% of its worth in contrast with Uber’s achieve of 20%, as of Wednesday’s shut.

Reporting by Yuvraj Malik in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber and Arun Koyyur