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Why Coinbase's latest layoffs feel bigger than they are

 1 year ago
source link: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-coinbases-latest-layoffs-feel-bigger-than-they-are-morning-brief-101844631.html
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Coinbase cuts 20% of its workforce as part of restructuring plan
 continuing to hit the economy. 
Coinbase cuts 20% of its workforce as part of restructuring plan
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Why Coinbase's latest layoffs feel bigger than they are: Morning Brief

Myles Udland
·Senior Markets Editor
Wed, January 11, 2023, 7:18 PM GMT+9·4 min read

A version of this article first appeared in the Morning Brief. Get the Morning Brief sent directly to your inbox every Monday to Friday by 6:30 a.m. ET. Subscribe

Wednesday, January 11, 2023

Today's newsletter is by Myles Udland, senior markets editor at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @MylesUdland and on LinkedIn. Read this and more market news on the go with

Coinbase (COIN) announced Tuesday it would be laying off 950 staff members, or around another 20% of its team.

As Yahoo Finance's David Hollerith reported, this brings the company's total cuts since the spring of 2022 to more than 2,000 employees.

Coming just days after Bureau of Labor Statistics data revealed 223,000 jobs were created in December — and 4.5 million jobs were added to the U.S. economy in 2022 — it's hard to see Coinbase's cuts as signaling much beyond an indication steam continues to come out of the latest crypto bull market.

As David noted in his reporting, even in the context of a tech industry that has seen the labor market soften, crypto barely registers. According to data from layoffs.fyi, the tech industry saw approximately 151,600 job cuts through 2022, with crypto cuts contributing to 6.2% of the total.

Painful for those who lost jobs, no doubt, but something in the neighborhood of a footnote in the context of a labor market that continues to see demand for workers outpace supply.

But a line from Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong's message to employees stood out, signaling that though cuts may be modest in the first instance, a long-term shift is underway in a sector that defined the economy for most of the last decade.

Brian Armstrong, CEO and Co-Founder, Coinbase, speaks during the Milken Institute Global Conference on May 2, 2022 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Patrick T. FALLON / AFP) (Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)
Brian Armstrong, CEO and Co-Founder, Coinbase, speaks during the Milken Institute Global Conference on May 2, 2022 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Patrick T. FALLON / AFP) (Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)

From Armstrong's note, with emphasis added:

This is also a moment where I'd like us to focus on our startup culture, and remember what it feels like to have small, nimble teams that are able to get more done. As Coinbase grew so quickly in 2021, we all felt the coordination headwind that caused us to move more slowly. Over the past 10 years, we, along with most tech companies, became too focused on growing headcount as a metric for success. Especially in this economic environment, it's important to shift our focus to operational efficiency.

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