Wattpad lays off 15% of its employees, blaming the changing economic environment

Difficult financial situations are affecting firms of all sizes and are inflicting layoffs. Storytelling platform Wattpad introduced Tuesday it’s shedding 42 of its 267 workforce – that is roughly 15% of employees. Workers leaving will obtain a minimum of 12 weeks of seniority and 6 months of steady advantages. They may also be allowed to maintain office-dedicated units resembling laptops.

In a weblog submit, the corporate blamed the financial surroundings for cost-cutting measures and mentioned the layoffs affected all components of it.

“As you all know, the worldwide financial actuality has basically modified over the previous 12 months, and we, like different companies, are usually not exempt from it. The corporate’s interim president, KB Nam, mentioned that regardless of doing our greatest to restrict the impression of the altering financial surroundings over the previous few months, immediately we try to cut back our workforce. We made a troublesome however crucial choice.”

“This doesn’t imply that these workforce members are usually not an important a part of our enterprise. You will need to word that these selections are made in response to altering enterprise realities and wishes and are by no means a mirrored image of particular person contributions. Everybody at Wattpad has had large success and had a optimistic impression on our firm.”

Final 12 months, the corporate appointed Naver Webtoon’s Nam as interim president. Jeanne Lam has decided to leave. In 2021, Wattpad turned a part of the South Korean firm Naver after a $600 million acquisition.

Final June, the corporate launched a brand new creator program that may pay writers as much as $25,000. It additionally launched a brand new metric for authors known as “Associated Readers”.