Zillow lays off 25 percent of staff
The real estate site announces Friday that it has cut 25 of its employees to prepare for a recession.
Zillow, the online resource to find out how much your home is worth, announced that it has laid off 25 percent of its workforce to prepare for what it expects will be an extremely severe economic environment.
"This week we are reducing our workforce by 25 percent, Rich Barton, Zillow's CEO said in a blog post. "This was an incredibly painful decision for me and the leadership team, but, in the end, we concluded that we had no choice but to securely batten down the hatches as we sail into a major economic storm.
"The unprecedented economic events that are playing out on a global stage began in our own industry and have made a prolonged recession likely, in our judgment," he added.
Barton went on to explain that despite having a sizable cash reserve, the company is still not profitable and the best move for Zillow at this juncture was to reduce employee expenses to "emerge from the other side of the recession in a very strong position, even if the recession lasts many years."
Barton was quick to point that his decision to cut staff was not the result of lackluster performance. According to the CEO, Zillow recorded 5.4 million unique visitors last month, which represented a 42 percent increase over the same period last year. And although that should improve its financial condition, Zillow is still losing money each month, which made these layoffs necessary.
Zillow is just the latest of many technology companies to announce layoffs over the past week.