Carousela Singaporean consumer-to-consumer (C2C) service platform operating in Southeast Asia lays off about 110 employees, or 10% of its total workforce, in a bid to reduce costs in a challenging market environment for the technology industry .
The announcement came from the company’s blog on Thursday, posted by Carousell co-founder and CEO Siu Rui Quek, saying, “I take responsibility for the decisions that led us here. Saying goodbye to teammates, whom we are grateful for participating in this mission, is a very difficult decision.”
Carousell did not specify which business units or regional offices would be affected by the layoffs. The Singapore-based company operates in Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Cambodia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
In the statement, the company’s leaders had talked about finding ways, including moving to a low-cost rental office and voluntarily cutting the salaries of co-founders and executives to save budgets without cutting staff. But that was “far from enough,” it said.
Quek also explained in the blog post that he was “overly optimistic” about recovering from the COVID pandemic, even doubling down on recruiting and investment for his company. “The reality is that we quickly grew our spending and hiring, but returns took longer than expected,” Quek wrote. “It is important to act quickly, stay on track and keep our investment levels on track to better reflect this new reality.”
Affected workers will receive at least three months’ salary and can extend their medical benefits and insurance coverage until June next year. According to the statement, the company will also pay out any remaining time off and provide career counseling and job search support, with the laid-off employees able to keep their office laptop and LinkedIn Learning membership through June 2023.
Founded in 2012, Carousell has raised a total of $372.6 million since inception with the backing of Sequoia Capital India, Naver, 500 Global and Rakuten Capital. per Crunch base.
