Vimeo enters 2023 with a round of layoffs, impacting 11% of employees

Vimeo rings in the new year with another round of layoffs, affecting 11% of its workforce. In an email to staff today, CEO Anjali Sud cited an “uncertain economic environment” as the reason for the reduction.

“This was a very hard decision that impacts each of us deeply. It is also the right thing to do to enable Vimeo to be a more focused and successful company … It positions us to both invest in our growth priorities and be sustainably profitable while continuing to innovate to bring the power of video to every business in the world,” Sud wrote. She added that impacted employees were told via individual emails and were sent an invitation to meet with their team leader and a member of human resources.

Employees in the Sales and Research & Development departments made up the majority of the layoffs.

This isn’t the first round of layoffs for the video hosting platform, which cut 6% of its staff in July 2022. Since the July layoffs, Vimeo has seen a “further deterioration in economic conditions, in the form of prolonged geopolitical conflict, rising interest rates, and global recession fears,” Sud said. In November, the company reported its third-quarter earnings, showing a loss of about 100,000 subscribers from the previous quarter and an operating loss of $22.9 million.

However, Sud is confident that Vimeo can make a comeback. “We are entering 2023 with a more focused strategy to simplify Vimeo, and ultimately, our team size and composition needs to reflect that focus,” she wrote. “This reduction enables us to achieve our growth and profitability goals in a way that is far less dependent on the broader market, putting us in full control of our destiny.”

In May of last year, Vimeo went public on the New York Stock Exchange. Launched in 2004, Vimeo now claims over 260 million users, including big corporations, small businesses, organizations and content creators.

As of December 2021, Vimeo employed 1,219 full-time workers, per its annual regulatory filing.

Vimeo joins the growing list of tech companies that have downsized in the past few months, from Salesforce and Twitter to Meta, Amazon and more.