PayPal cuts 2,500 jobs in the face of rising competition

PayPal says it will cut another 2,500 jobs, or 9% of its global workforce, a year after making a similar move.

Chief executive officer Alex Chriss told staff that the decision was made to “right-size” the company “through both direct reductions and the elimination of open roles”.

The staff who are affected will be notified by the end of the week, the digital payments giant said.

PayPal faces rising competition from rivals such as Apple, Zelle and Block.

Mr Chriss was brought in from software company Intuit last year to help turn around PayPal.

Investors hoped he would be able to revive the company’s share price which has fallen by more than 20% in the past 12 months.

In November, the PayPal reported its first earnings under its new boss, which topped analysts expectations, giving investors some hope that its turnaround was underway.

Last week, the firm launched new artificial intelligence-driven products as well as a one-click checkout feature.

The latest job cuts follow tens of thousands of layoffs by other technology giants in recent months.

More than 260,000 jobs were lost in the sector last year, according to the Layoffs.fyi website, which tracks technology industry job cuts.

In just the last month, almost 100 tech firms – including Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, TikTok and Salesforce – have announced a total of 25,000 job cuts.

This week, Block, which is led by Twitter’s co-founder Jack Dorsey, began cutting jobs as part of its goal to trim its workforce by 1,000 by the end of the year.

Last year, executives blamed job losses on the pandemic hiring spree and high inflation which resulted in weak consumer demand.

However, some technology industry workers are fighting back. Earlier this month, a union representing workers at Google said it was “needless” for the tech giant to cut hundreds of jobs when it makes billions of dollars a year.