Over 200 layoffs confirmed at Bay Area tech company Lyft
SAN FRANCISCO -- The layoffs that had been announced last week were confirmed Thursday at local tech company Lyft, raising questions about what the loss of jobs will mean for the wider Bay Area economy.
Ride-hailing app company Lyft confirmed the layoffs to KPIX. Lyft is eliminating 227 jobs. Meanwhile, online banking company Chime is reportedly laying off over 150 workers. Both companies have notified the state Employment Development Department as required, according to reports.
The confirmed Lyft layoffs were smaller than expected after reports last week that the company was planning to let go of upwards of 700 workers.
There has been a surge in Bay Area tech layoffs during the last two weeks, with Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta eliminating the most jobs with Wednesday's announcement that 11,000 employees would be laid off.
Last week, there were reports that new Twitter owner Elon Musk was set to eliminate half of the company's workforce amid the chaos that has gripped the San Francisco social media company since Musk completed his purchase of the platform.
The company laid off approximately 3,700 employees. There were reports that a number of workers have already been asked to return to the company since the initial wave of layoffs.
On Thursday, Musk announced that employees would have to come into Twitter headquarters on Market Street to work instead of operating remotely. He told employees that some "exceptional" employees could seek an exemption from his return-to-work order, but that others who didn't like it could quit, according to an employee at the meeting who spoke on condition of anonymity out of a concern for job security.
Numerous other local tech companies have been laying off workers, including Juul, Salesforce, Netflix, Spotify and Stripe. Fears of a looming recession come as the Federal Reserve ordered another .75% increase to interest rates last week.