GoTo cuts 1,300 jobs as it anticipates ‘uncertainties’ to linger for long

GoTo Group is cutting 1,300 jobs, or 12% of its workforce, it informed staff early Friday, as Indonesia’s largest internet company attempts to trim costs and improve finances.

“Achieving financial independence more quickly has a profound cost for us, because when we take a hard look at how we fundamentally need to change (business focus and ways of working), it also includes you, the people who are the backbone of this company,” wrote GoTo Group chief executive Andre Soelistyo in an email to staff, seen by TechCrunch.

“It pains me to say that, as a result of our organizational review, we have to part ways with some of you,” he wrote. “I know you are filled with many emotions right now, pain, anger, sadness, and most of all, grief. I feel the same way.”

GoTo joins scores of local and global peers in its decision to cut workforce to navigate the economic slowdown, rising interest rates, or as Soelistyo described in the email Friday, “uncertainties will linger for a while, and there is not much that we can do to change that.”

A GoTo spokesperson told TechCrunch that the move is part of its growing attempts to “accelerate its progress towards becoming a truly sustainable and financially independent business, centered on its core offerings of on-demand, e-commerce and financial technology services.”

“GoTo has been making steady progress in this area underpinned by its strategic focus on high-quality cross-platform users, reduced incentive spending, and driving deeper synergies across its ecosystem.”

“To accelerate further, since the beginning of the year, the company has been implementing a comprehensive end-to-end cost optimization exercise that involves aligning operating models, unifying processes, consolidating vendors, renegotiating contracts for various cost items and finding structural efficiencies. By the end of Q2, approximately Rp800 billion ($51 million) in structural cost savings had been achieved in areas such as technology, marketing and outsourcing,” the spokesperson added.