Uber Makes Further Cuts to Its Staff as Losses Pile Up

(Bloomberg) -- Uber Technologies Inc. is dismissing 435 employees, the second major staff cut this summer, as the company faces mounting losses and a declining stock price.

The eliminated jobs are in the product and engineering divisions, representing about 8% of those groups. Uber said it was firing about 400 marketing employees, about a third of that department, in July.

Four months after Uber went public, the stock is trading about 25% below the initial public offering price. Last month, the ride-hailing company reported its largest-ever quarterly loss of $5.24 billion. This week, California lawmakers are expected to vote on a labor bill that could dramatically alter the gig economy and foist new costs onto Uber.

Uber instituted a hiring freeze of technical staff in the U.S. and Canada last month. A spokesman now says the freeze is over following Tuesday’s cuts. The news was reported earlier by TechCrunch.

“We are not doing this for Wall Street,” Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s chief executive officer, wrote Tuesday in an email to staff. “We are doing this for Uber. It’s critical we get our edge back and continually push ourselves to do better.”

Uber has more than 27,000 employees, with intentions to add more to certain divisions. It outlined plans Monday to hire 2,000 people in Chicago over the next three years to work on Uber Freight, a service to connect truckers with shipments. The company touts trucking as an area of potential growth, as revenue from ride-hailing decelerates.

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