Waze Was Forced To Lay Off Employees And Close Offices In Several Countries

Waze app (doc. 9to5Google)

JAKARTA - Companies that lay off employees in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to continue to grow. One of them is a digital navigation platform, Waze, which reportedly has 30 employees laid off (PHK).

Launching The Verge, Thursday, September 10, this figure accounts for more than 5 percent of Waze's total workforce of 555 people. This was claimed because of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which until now has not gradually improved.

Waze CEO Noam Bardin told employees that travel restrictions imposed around the world have led to a significant drop in app usage, trips made via carpool services and the company's advertising revenue.

"This has forced us to rethink priorities, and we have decided to focus our resources on improving products for our users, accelerating our investment in technical infrastructure, and refocusing our sales and marketing efforts in a small number of high-value countries," he said. Bardin.

According to Bardin's report, Waze will also close sales offices in Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Colombia, Argentina and Chile. Meanwhile, employees who are still surviving today will be diverted from their jobs to focus on sales, teamwork and marketing teams.

Later, employees who are laid off will still get a year-end bonus if they meet the requirements, and receive benefits such as health care and help finding jobs, both on Google and elsewhere until early 2021.

For information, Waze, which was acquired by Google in 2013 for 1.2 billion US dollars, has struggled in the midst of a pandemic, unfortunately the company has continued to experience a decline since last April, approximately 60 percent globally.

On the one hand, Waze is not alone, ride-hailing services such as Uber, Gojek, Grab and Lyft have been forced to lay off a large number of their employees because of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.