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Waze, the Google-owned mapping and navigation service, will lay off 5 percent of its global workforce, or about 30 people out of 555 total employees, the company’s CEO said in an email to employees. Waze will also close several of its offices in the Asia-Pacific and Latin America regions as it seeks to refocus its business on certain markets.
Waze said the layoffs were due in part to the coronavirus pandemic, which has emptied roads around the world and closed many cities. As shelter-in-place and working from home become the new norm, fewer people are using Waze for their daily boating needs. Fewer eyes on the app means less ad revenue for the business.
Waze, which was acquired by Google in 2013 for a reported value of $ 1.1 billion, has seen a drop in both monthly active users, or the number of customers who use the app each month, as well as miles driven, metric by which the company measures the extent to which its customers drive while using Waze.
In April, Waze exposed in a blog post how severely some of those numbers are falling. Globally, Waze customers drove 60 percent fewer miles in March, when the closures began to take effect, compared to February. Italy specifically experienced the biggest drop at 90 percent. The United States also fell by 60 percent.
But as the pandemic progressed, those numbers got worse. Waze says that at one point during the lockdown, weekly kilometers traveled globally decreased 70 percent. Since June, Waze has started to see a recovery in driving as people return to work in countries where restrictions have been lifted. Globally, the company says it has returned to pre-COVID driving levels.
Waze will “rethink priorities,” CEO Noam Bardin said in the email, “and we have decided to focus our resources on product improvements for our users, accelerate our investments in technical infrastructure, and refocus our sales and marketing efforts on a small number. from high-value countries. “
Waze Carpool, the company’s two-year ride-sharing service, is also suffering. With more people working from home, fewer people use Waze Carpool to carpool with co-workers or other neighbors who work a similar route. As a result, Waze is reducing the number of people who work on its independent car sharing service. Earlier this year, Waze was on track to cross 1 million monthly shared rides worldwide, and now the company is nowhere near that, a spokesperson said.
Of the 30 people who receive receipts, most are from the company’s sales, marketing and associations divisions. But this won’t be a permanent downsizing: Waze says it plans to hire a proportionate number of people for its technology and engineering teams in the coming months.
Waze is also closing offices in countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Colombia, Chile and Argentina as it seeks to focus more on countries where its business is growing. That includes the US, UK, France, Brazil, and Mexico.
Waze, obviously, is not the only technology company, not even a trucking company, to suffer layoffs during the pandemic. Uber, Lyft, Yelp, Mozilla, Kickstarter, Lime, Sonos, Glitch and dozens of other companies have laid off workers during the pandemic. Tens of millions of people are still out of work, as the country’s unemployment remains at 8.4 percent (although the true figure is likely to be much higher).
Waze is aware that firing people in the middle of a pandemic can be cruel. The company says it is committed to providing laid-off workers with a cushion, which includes severance pay, bonuses and health insurance, through early 2021.
Here’s the full note to staff from Waze CEO Noam Bardin:
Dear Wazers,
With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, many cities and countries have imposed travel restrictions to slow the spread of the disease, so it’s no wonder our users drive less (or have stopped altogether), which It has caused a significant drop in kilometers traveled (KMD), carpooling and advertising revenue.
This has forced us to rethink priorities and we have decided to focus our resources on product improvements for our users, accelerate our investments in technical infrastructure, and refocus our sales and marketing efforts in a small number of high-value countries. These investments ensure Waze’s long-term success and that we emerge from this pandemic stronger than we entered.
I have always strived to maintain a transparent culture at Waze, so I want to share with you that in order to continue and accelerate our investment in Engineering and other technical positions, I have decided to close 30 positions in other parts of Waze. I’m sorry this email comes in at such a late time, but I wanted to make sure we reach out to all affected employees first.
At a high level, these are the affected areas:
Ads Sales Team: The ad team will shrink and focus on the key markets that generate 93% of revenue and carry 95% of the KMD we sell in. This means that we will close the field sales offices in APAC (Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia) and smaller LATAM markets (Colombia, Argentina, Chile). We will continue to serve these countries through increased investments in Waze Local Starter, with the support of our SMB teams at our main sales centers.
Association team: The uncertainty of our employer partners’ return-to-work plans and with employees continuing to work from home means that we will be downsizing the Carpool Partnerships team. Our reduced product focus also means that we will reduce our partnerships of products and teams from the public and private sectors.
Marketing team: The focus on fewer markets and adjustments in our partnership investments means that we will be downsizing the marketing team.
Performance Marketing Team: We are making product investments to support our growth efforts, and we are restructuring the performance marketing team to realign these efforts.
Letting go of the Wazers is an extremely painful process for everyone. I want to make it clear that these reductions are being made because of the constraints created by the pandemic and to support investments in our focus areas, and not because of anyone’s actions or performance.
The Wazers that left were a critical part of our growth thus far, and it’s important that we take care of those who leave as best we can. Our goal is to try to help as much as possible and make this process easier for them. We’ve done everything we can to help those affected with a compensation package that includes:
Career transition: Google’s internal mobility teams have been working with us and will help all affected employees find opportunities within Google.
Relocation services: We will offer outplacement services to all affected employees from the date of the notice to six months after employment.
Financial: Given the circumstances of the year, we have worked closely with internal HR teams to ensure that everyone has been served by early 2021 and eligible for year-end bonuses.
Health care: We are providing each affected employee with as many ongoing benefits as possible, in accordance with local law.
I ask that we all help out in whatever way we can and support our colleagues, both to highlight internal roles at Google that we may be aware of and external opportunities that we may be aware of.
I want to thank all affected team members – Waze has become what it is thanks to your contributions. These changes are occurring due to a global pandemic and none of this is your fault. We have no doubt that she will bring her talents to a new team and help them improve even more, as she has at Waze.
Thank you.
Noam
