As Uber embarks on another round of layoffs, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi signaled that the company may be able to avoid more job cuts in the future, but said he can’t make any promises.
The company, which has seen its revenue dip by up to 80% amid the COVID-19 pandemic, moved forward with plans to lay off 3,000 workers this week, Business Insider first reported. Those bring the company’s total job cuts to 6,700 this month — roughly a quarter of its global workforce.
In a grim email to staff Monday, Khosrowshahi implied that Uber has made it past the worst of its job cuts, but stopped short of promising that there won’t be cuts in the future.
“Having learned my own personal lesson about the unpredictability of the world from the punch-in-the-gut called COVID-19, I will not make any claims with absolute certainty regarding our future,” Khosrowshahi wrote. “I will tell you, however, that we are making really, really hard choices now, so that we can say our goodbyes, have as much clarity as we can, move forward, and start to build again with confidence.”
He framed the layoffs as a necessary step to achieving future stability, adding that “hope is not a strategy.”
In addition to detailing job cuts, the bulk of Khosrowshahi’s email expounds on Uber’s plan to achieve profitability despite the hit it’s taken from COVID-19.
“We must establish ourselves as a self-sustaining enterprise that no longer relies on new capital or investors to keep growing,” he wrote.
