Expedia laid off 12% of it's total workforce all across the world. It was my first time seeing a lot of co-workers being relieved of their duties. It wasn't surprising to see but definitely not how others arnud me expected.
We had a rough financial quarter recently, the CEO was let go however they waited for months before cutting down on the rest of the staff. I expected layoffs to be much sooner but I guess large global orgs move slow, even in sizing down teams
What was also interesting in the nature of the layoffs was that it happened on a team basis and not as much on a talent basis. The decision was to cut down on a team level, which meant high performers in the wrong teams became collateral. Also meant any low performers on the surviving teams weren't let go.
It was not just waching layoffs happen but how it was done and the numerous ways it could have been done got me thinking a lot. I saw good engineers and designers being let go but I also still see job openings on the company site. Would have been smarter to move them into the other teams but now we probably won't be getting much applications soon.
There is uncertainty around travel industry in general right now, let's see how things change once the macro environment changes.