Commission-free investing app Robinhood is cutting about 7% of its full-time staff in its third round of layoffs in just over a year, nearly havling the company’s headcount from what it was at the start of 2022.
About 150 workers across customer experience and platform shared services; customer trust and safety; and safety and productivity will be affected, according to an internal memo obtained by The Wall Street Journal.
The firings were made to “adjust to volumes and to better align team structures,” Chief Financial Officer Jason Warnick said in the message, the outlet reported.
It’s unclear when workers will start getting handed pink slips, which comes as the company adjusts to a slowdown in customer trading activity.
A Robinhood spokesperson told The Journal: “We’re ensuring operational excellence in how we work together on an ongoing basis. In some cases, this may mean teams make changes based on volume, workload, org design and more.”
Meanwhile, Robinhood’s LinkedIn page boasts job openings for 185 positions at its headquarters in Melo Park, Calif., as well as offices in New York, Denver, Seattle and more.
The Post has reached out to Robinhood for comment.
However, Robinhood’s revenue is up.
The stock trading and investing platform reported $441 million in earnings in Q1 of 2023.
The company earned $299 million during the same period in 2022, according to its earnings report.
The impending layoffs were announced less than a week after Robinhood acquired no-fee credit card startup X1 in a $95 million cash deal.
“Together with X1, Robinhood will now be able to offer our customers access to credit,” co-founder and CEO Vlad Tenev said in a statement on Robinhood’s blog.
The 150 workers slated to be given pink slips is the third round of layoffs at the company since April 2022.
Robinhood laid off about 9% of its full-time staffers last April — and then another 23% in August.
According its annual report, Robinhood had about 3,800 employees in 2021, which was slashed to about 2,300 by the end of 2022.
Now, Robinhood boasts a workforce of about 1,200, according to its listing on job board Zippia.
The second quarter of 2021 was the platform’s best, according to public filings, when it touted over 21 million monthly active users who used the app to trade stocks and invest from their mobile phones during the pandemic.
In the first quarter of 2023, monthly active users have dipped to 11.8 million.
Shares of Robinhood are up more than 1% in premarket trading on Tuesday, and 19.18% year-to-date.
However, shares are down about 86% from Robinhood’s record high in 2021, shortly after the company went public.
[Written in collaboration with other media outlets with information from the following sources]
