Uber laid off 3,500 employees in a three-minute Zoom call last week.
The ride-sharing company informed those 3,500 people who worked in customer service and recruitment around the country that it would be their last day working for Uber on the live call.
“Today will be your last working day with Uber,” company manager Ruffin Chevaleau informed some of the axed customer-support employees in one video phone call, as media reported.
“Right now, the rides business is down by more than half due to COVID-19,” said Chevaleau, who helps oversee customer service for Uber. “The difficult and unfortunate reality is there is not enough work for many front-line customer-support employees.
“As a result, we are eliminating 3,500 front-line customer-support roles,” she said — or about 14 percent of ride-share-app’s work force.
“I know that this is incredibly hard to hear,” Chevaleau said, fighting to choke back tears. “No one wants to be on a call like this.
“I know that this is a lot to take in.”
She said she was giving the devastating news in a video phone call because she “wanted to deliver this news personally.
“You will remain on payroll until the date notice of your severance package,” the manager added before turning the call over to a human-resources rep.
A company source told The Post on Monday that the online encounter was one of “tens of” video calls made by “various leaders in the organization” — and that the layoffs were made this way “since our offices are closed due to COVID-19 and because these layoffs affected people across 46 countries.”
One of the axed workers later reacted “I would prefer to have had notice”.
“The day before, we were told we would know in two weeks what departments would be let go.
“If I missed that Zoom call, I would have missed the news.”
The company later said in a statement, “It’s never easy or uncomplicated to let employees go, and that’s only been more true during this unprecedented period, where we are all working from home across dozens of cities and countries.
“We’ve focused on providing the clearest, most empathetic experience possible and have put together a strong severance package and other benefits.”
The company last week filed a document with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission saying it planned to lay off 3,700 full-time workers because of the “economic challenges and uncertainty resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Company CEO Dara Khosrowshahi also agreed to waive the rest of his base salary for the year, the filing said. The exec’s salary was around $1 million last year, though much of his compensation is through stock./Source:nypost
