Instacart lays off 250 employees, or 7% of its workforce, to ‘reshape’ company

Grocery-delivery giant Instacart announced today that it’s laying off around 250 employees, or roughly 7% of its global workforce, as part of a restructuring. Instacart CEO Fidji Simo said in a letter to investors that the layoffs will allow the company to streamline how it operates. The company announced the layoffs alongside the release of its fourth-quarter earnings.

“Today, we made the tough decision to part with approximately 250 of our talented team members,” Simo wrote in the letter. “This will allow us to reshape the company and flatten the organization so we can focus on our most promising initiatives that we believe will transform our company and industry over the long-term. I am confident this will enable us to execute with even more focus and efficiency moving forward.”

In an SEC filing, Instacart said the layoffs will allow it to better align its organizational structure with current “business needs, top strategic priorities, and key growth opportunities.” The company had a total of 3,486 employees as of June 30, 2023, according to a regulatory filing.

Instacart also announced that three of its executives, including its chief technology officer and chief operating officer, will be leaving the company for personal reasons. The company said it doesn’t plan to hire or appoint a new chief operating officer “at this time.”

Instacart reported revenues of $803 million for its fourth quarter, slightly down from analysts’ $804.7 million estimate.

Shares of Instacart are up about 3% in after-market trading.

“Our consumer product is the best it has ever been, enabling us to invest more than we ever have before on marketing and incentives that have the ability to resurrect and attract new users as well as deepen engagement with existing users,” Simo wrote. “We’re doing all of this while maintaining our relentless focus on profitable growth and our long-term financial targets.”

Instacart is one of many tech companies to conduct layoffs in the past month. Numerous tech companies, including Google, Microsoft, Snapchat, eBay, PayPal, DocuSign, Okta, Block, Discord, Twitch and Duolingo have all conducted sizable layoffs in just the past two weeks.