ZipRecruiter Slashes Staff by 39% as Job Market Seizes – a Telling Sign as Nation Slides Into Recession

Sam Blake

Sam primarily covers entertainment and media for dot.LA. Previously he was Marjorie Deane Fellow at The Economist, where he wrote for the business and finance sections of the print edition. He has also worked at the XPRIZE Foundation, U.S. Government Accountability Office, KCRW, and MLB Advanced Media (now Disney Streaming Services). He holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson, an MPP from UCLA Luskin and a BA in History from University of Michigan. Email him at samblake@dot.LA and find him on Twitter @hisamblake

ZipRecruiter Slashes Staff by 39% as Job Market Seizes – a Telling Sign as Nation Slides Into Recession

ZipRecruiter, one of the nation's largest websites connecting companies with jobseekers, has slashed nearly 40% of its own staff as the economy buckles in the fallout of the coronavirus crisis that's upended both Wall Street and Main Street.

The Santa Monica-based company cut 492 employees on Friday, with about 49 of them furloughed with only their healthcare benefits and the hope that the company will make good on its intention to bring them back, sources told dot.LA. The biggest hit was at ZipRecruiter's office in Tempe, from its sales team.


The move parallels what has become a global economic disaster as stock markets dive and companies freeze spending. Unemployment filings in America surged to a staggering record of 3.3 million last week. And economists predict productivity will be sharply down for the rest of the year, with Goldman Sachs forecasting an annualized 24% shrinkage of the U.S. economy from April through June.

"Our customer base looks like the U.S. economy by size, geography and industry," ZipRecruiter Chief Executive Ian Siegel told dot.LA. "The U.S. economy is hurting and we regretfully have to do what is necessary to make sure we are there for the great American comeback story to come."

ZipRecruiter -- whose own data is well followed by economists as a harbinger of hiring activity -- faces the same bleak reality that pushed the U.S. government to issue its largest ever financial stimulus package last week, topping $2 trillion. Since the start of this year the S&P 500 has fallen nearly 22%. National unemployment could reach 30% by the second quarter, said St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard. Meanwhile the coronavirus toll climbs, with over 2,000 deaths in the U.S. and more than 124,000 confirmed cases as of Saturday.

In addition to news updates, company executives have kept close watch of internal data to guide their reaction. Most alarming was the rapid decline in new business signups, which have plummeted below half the normal rate. Job postings have fallen, too, by 40% compared to "pre-COVID levels", particularly among non-essential businesses like retail, restaurants and automakers.

ZipRecruiter determined it needed to prepare for many months of economic lethargy. Sacked workers will receive one month's severance pay, three months of healthcare coverage, and a two-year extension to exercise their equity.

The layoffs are part of ZipRecruiter's broader cost-cutting measures, which also include reducing the marketing budget. Monthly expenses have been cut by $10 million. Siegel has taken a 50% salary reduction, as have his three co-founders, who are active employees and board members. Other executives are also taking pay cuts.

Company leadership does not think this crisis affects its long-term outlook. It still sees a winning opportunity in using artificial intelligence to connect job seekers and employers, if only once the coronavirus trauma begins to subside.

They surely hope that'll happen sooner than later.

The company's statement appears below in full.

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically altered almost every aspect of our lives. Among them has been a pronounced reduction in hiring activity over the past couple weeks as "safer at home" edicts have gone into effect across the country.

As a result of this decline in economic activity, ZipRecruiter came to the difficult decision to furlough or lay off 492 employees (39% of total headcount) on Friday. These actions are in no way a reflection of the incredible contributions these valued team members made to ZipRecruiter.

To help them through this difficult period we provided all impacted individuals with 1 month of severance pay, 3 months of company-paid COBRA healthcare insurance coverage, and a 2 year extension to exercise their equity.

In times like these, ZipRecruiter's mission of connecting people to their next great opportunity will be more important than ever. To fuel the coming recovery, the ZipRecruiter team stands ready.

----

Sam Blake is dot.LA's entertainment and media reporter. Email him at samblake@dot.LA and find him on Twitter @hisamblake. Are you a tech worker in the L.A. who has been affected by job losses due to the coronavirus? Let us know your story at editor@dot.la.

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samblake@dot.la

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Why Pierced Media Is Betting on Creators To Be The Next Generation of Podcast Stars

Nat Rubio-Licht
Nat Rubio-Licht is a freelance reporter with dot.LA. They previously worked at Protocol writing the Source Code newsletter and at the L.A. Business Journal covering tech and aerospace. They can be reached at nat@dot.la.
Why Pierced Media Is Betting on Creators To Be The Next Generation of Podcast Stars
Evan Xie

It’s no secret that men dominate the podcasting industry. Even as women continue to grow their foothold, men still make up many of the highest-earning podcasts, raking in massive paychecks from ad revenue and striking deals with streaming platforms worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

But a new demographic is changing that narrative: Gen-Z female influencers and content creators.

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NASA’s JPL Receives Billions to Begin Understanding Our Solar System

Samson Amore

Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College and previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.

NASA’s JPL Receives Billions to Begin Understanding Our Solar System
Evan Xie

NASA’s footprint in California is growing as the agency prepares for Congress to approve its proposed 2024 budget.

The overall NASA budget swelled 6% from the prior year, JPL deputy director Larry James told dot.LA. He added he sees that as a continuation of the last two presidential administrations’ focus on modernizing and bolstering the nation’s space program.

The money goes largely to existing NASA centers in California, including the Pasadena-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory run with Caltech, Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley and Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base.

California remains a hotspot for NASA space activity and investment. In 2021, the agency estimated its economic output impact on the region to be around $15.2 billion. That was far more than its closest competing states, including Texas ($9.3 billion) and Maryland (roughly $8 billion). That same year, NASA reported it employed over 66,000 people in California.

“In general, Congress has been very supportive” of the JPL and NASA’s missions, James said. “It’s generally bipartisan [and] supported by both sides of the aisle. In the last few years in general NASA has been able to have increased budgets.”

There are 41 current missions run by JPL and CalTech, and another 16 scheduled for the future. James added the new budget is “an incredible support for all the missions we want to do.”

The public-private partnership between NASA and local space companies continues to evolve, and the increased budget could be a boon for LA-based developers. Numerous contractors for NASA (including CalTech, which runs the JPL), Boeing, Lockheed Martin, SpaceX and Northrop Grumman all stand to gain new contracts once the budget is finalized, partly because NASA simply needs the private industry’s help to achieve all its goals.

James said that there was only one JPL mission that wasn’t funded – a mission to send an orbital satellite to survey the surface and interior of Venus, called VERITAS.

NASA Employment and Output ImpactEvan Xie

The Moon and Mars

Much of the money earmarked in the proposed 2024 budget is for crewed missions. Overall, NASA’s asking for $8 billion from Congress to fund lunar exploration missions. As part of this, the majority is earmarked for the upcoming Artemis mission, which aims to land a woman and person of color on the Moon’s south pole.

While there’s a number of high-profile missions the JPL is working on that are focused on Mars, including Mars Sample Return project (which received $949 million in this proposed budget) and Ingenuity helicopter and Perseverance rover, JPL also received significant funding to study the Earth’s climate and behavior.

JPL also got funding for several projects to map our universe. One is the SphereX Near Earth Objects surveyor mission, the goal of which is to use telescopes to “map the entire universe,” James said, adding that the mission was fully funded.

International Space Station

NASA’s also asking for more money to maintain the International Space Station (ISS), which houses a number of projects dedicated to better understanding the Earth’s climate and behavior.

The agency requested roughly $1.3 billion to maintain the ISS. It also is increasing its investment in space flight support, in-space transportation and commercial development of low-earth orbit (LEO). “The ISS is an incredible platform for us,” James said.

James added there are multiple missions outside or on board the ISS now taking data, including EMIT, which launched in July 2022. The EMIT mission studies arid dust sources on the planet using spectroscopy. It uses that data to remodel how mineral dust movement in North and South America might affect the Earth’s temperature changes.

Another ISS mission JPL launched is called ECOSTRESS. The mission sent a thermal radiometer onto the space station in June 2018 to monitor how plants lose water through their leaves, with the goal of figuring out how the terrestrial biosphere reacts to changes in water availability. James said the plan is to “tell you the kind of foliage health around the globe” from space.

One other ISS project is called Cold Atom Lab. It is “an incredible fundamental physics machine,” James said, that’s run by “three Nobel Prize winners as principal investigators on the Space Station.” Cold Atom Lab is a physics experiment geared toward figuring out how quantum phenomena behave in space by cooling atoms with lasers to just below absolute zero degrees.

In the long term, James was optimistic NASA’s imaging projects could lead to more dramatic discoveries. Surveying the makeup of planets’ atmospheres is a project “in the astrophysics domain we’re very excited about,” James said. He added that this imaging could lead to information about life on other planets, or, at the very least, an understanding of why they’re no longer habitable.

https://twitter.com/samsonamore
samsonamore@dot.la

Three Wishes Cereal Co-Founder Margaret Wishingrad on ‘The Power of No’

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

Three Wishes Cereal Co-Founder Margaret Wishingrad on ‘The Power of No’
Provided by BHE

On this episode of Behind Her Empire, Three Wishes founder and CEO Margaret Wishingrad talks about creating brand awareness and shares the key component to running a successful business.

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