Stripe plans to slash staff amid business slowdown

Irish-founded fintech Stripe is to cut 14 per cent of its staff worldwide as the global downturn continues to hit the tech sector.

In an email to staff chief executive Patrick Collison said although the business was well positioned to weather harsh conditions Stripe had over-hired for the current economic situation. “We, the founders, made this decision,” Mr Collison said. “We over-hired for the world we’re in, and it pains us to be unable to deliver the experience that we hoped that those impacted would have at Stripe.”

The cuts will return the company’s staffing level to February 2022 levels, he added.

The company said it would pay staff at least 14 weeks of severance pay, the 2022 annual bonus for all departing employees, and waive vesting cliffs.

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Stripe employed more than 1,000 people globally through its Dublin unit at the end of 2021 and had planned to add hundreds more roles up to 2024.

It is not yet clear how many of dual Irish-US headquartered company’s Irish workforce will be affected.

A spokesman for the company said Stripe employs between 500 and 600 staff in Dublin. However, he declined to give specific details about how the layoffs would affect the company’s headcount in the capital despite the fact that those tagged to leave the firm were to receive notification 15 minutes after the email from Mr Collison on Thursday.

If the 14 per cent cut is applied, between 70 and 80 Stripe employees would be in line to lose their jobs.

“We were much too optimistic about the internet economy’s near-term growth in 2022 and 2023, and underestimated both the likelihood and impact of a broader slowdown,” Mr Collison said in his letter. In addition to the job cuts, “we are firmly reining in all other sources of cost”.

Stripe follows a number of other technology firms that have cut costs in recent weeks amid the general slowdown in the world economy. Facebook-owner Meta has instigated its first hiring freeze, while Intel plans to cut thousands of staff globally. Elon Musk plans to significantly reduce Twitter’s headcount.

Stripe’s most recent fundraising valued the business at about $95 billion. Still, the company reduced its internal valuation by about 28 per cent during the summer, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.