Irish tech unicorn Workhuman to lay off 10pc of staff

The job cuts represent the third major layoffs announcement in the last week to potentially affect Irish tech workers

Workhuman founder and CEO, Eric Mosley

Adrian Weckler

The Irish human resources tech firm Workhuman is to cut 10pc of its workforce. It currently employs 1,300 people worldwide with about 600 in its Dublin office. Its other major global base is in Boston.

It’s the third major layoffs move in the last week to potentially affect Irish tech employees, with Meta and Amazon both announcing second waves of redundancies amid a tough economic climate.

"A consultation process with potentially impacted employees will commence in the coming days,’ said the company in a statement.

"Workhuman will also inform the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment as part of this process.”

Workhuman was founded by Eric Mosley, from Tallaght. Barry Maloney is a significant investor in the firm.

“We’ve made the extremely difficult decision to reduce our global workforce by approximately 10pc of our humans,” said Mr Mosley in an update today.

“There are many reasons for this reduction. We need to realign our investments with new strategic initiatives and opportunities, we need to balance for growth and profitability, and we need to exercise prudence given the volatile macro environment.”

Mr Mosley did not specify the split of where the layoffs would be most concentrated.

“It’s important to note that while we are eliminating roles in some areas, we will continue to hire and invest in strategic initiatives that are critical to our continued growth and success,” he said.

“In fact, even with this recalibration, our workforce will remain larger than it was a short 12 months ago, ensuring sufficient capacity to achieve our ambitious growth objectives.”

He said that the terms of the severance will be a minimum of three months plus two weeks per year of service, capped at nine months, plus three months’ extended healthcare.

He said that staff can keep their work laptops and will retain access to work email and Slack until Friday.

“We’ve heard horror stories of people suddenly being shut out of all communications and facilities,” he said. “I trust our people, so there is no need for such unhelpful measures.”

Mr Mosley said that the company will continue to hire.

“Our business is fundamentally strong and resilient,” he said. “This reduction is part of a broader set of organisational and strategic investment changes we’re making to ensure we continue to deliver growth and profitability, and invest in areas of the business that are most aligned with our strategic objectives and will deliver the greatest customer value.”