Transportation startups are again experiencing a wave of layoffs (PHK).
Most recently, Grab announced it will lay off approximately 1,000 employees. This amounts to 11% of the company's current total workforce.
Grab CEO Anthony Tan argued that the reduction in employees is not a shortcut to profitability, but rather a strategic reorganization to adapt to an increasingly competitive business environment.
This claim reinforces the need for the company to manage costs and ensure more affordable services in the long term.
"Change has never been this fast. Technologies like AI (generative artificial intelligence) are developing at an incredibly rapid pace. The cost of capital has increased, directly impacting the competitive landscape," said Anthony in a letter sent to his employees, as quoted by Reuters on Tuesday (June 20, 2023).
Anthony stated that Grab's layoffs are the largest since the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2020, Grab also laid off 360 employees.
Besides Grab, the parent company of Gojek and Tokopedia, GoTo, also laid off 1,300 employees in November 2022.
According to data from Layoffs.fyi, the largest transportation startup layoffs since the Covid-19 pandemic occurred at Uber. The San Francisco-based startup laid off 3,700 employees on May 6, 2020. Then, in less than two weeks, Uber laid off another 3,000 employees.
The layoffs conducted by Grab this month are among the largest transportation startup layoffs since the beginning of the pandemic, ranking 9th out of a total of 169 such layoffs in the sector.
Here is a list of the 10 transportation startups with the most employee layoffs since February 1 to June 22, 2023:
1. Uber (May 6, 2020): 3,700 employees
2. Uber (May 18, 2020): 3,000 employees
3. Carvana (May 10, 2020): 2,500 employees
4. Carvana (November 18, 2022): 1,500 employees
5. Ola (May 20, 2020): 1,400 employees
6. Lucid Motors (March 28, 2023): 1,300 employees
7. GoTo (November 10, 2022): 1,300 employees
8. Lyft (April 21, 2023): 1,072 employees
9. Grab (June 20, 2023): 1,000 employees
10. Ola (July 29, 2022): 1,000 employees