Wattpad lays off 15% of its staff, blames changing economic environment

Challenging economic conditions are affecting companies of all sizes, resulting in job cuts. Storytelling platform Wattpad announced Tuesday that it has laid off 42 of its 267 people workforce — that’s nearly 15% of the staff. It will provide at least 12 weeks of severance and six months of continued benefits to the departing employees. Plus, they will be allowed to keep office-allocated devices such as laptops.

In a blog post, the company blamed the economic environment for the cost-cutting measures and said the layoff impacts all its divisions.

“As you all know, the global economic reality over the past year has fundamentally changed – and like other businesses, we are not immune. Despite our best efforts over the past several months to limit the impact of the changing economic environment, today, we’ve made the difficult but necessary decision to reduce our workforce,” The company’s interim president KB Nam said.

“This does not mean that these team members haven’t been an important part of our work. It’s important to note that these decisions are in response to changing business realities and needs, and are in no way a reflection of individual contributions. Everyone at Wattpad has accomplished a tremendous amount and had a positive impact on our company.”

Last year, the company appointed Naver Webtoon’s Nam as the interim president after Jeanne Lam decided to leave. In 2021, Wattpad became a part of the South Korean company Naver after a $600 million acquisition.

Last June, the company introduced a new creator program that could pay writers up to $25,000. It also launched a new measurement metric called “Engaged Readers” for writers.