Read the leaked email from WeWork's chairman telling employees that layoffs will begin 'in earnest' this week
- After weeks of official warnings from WeWork executives that layoffs will be coming, chairman Marcelo Claure said in an email on Monday that cuts will begin 'in earnest" this week.
- He indicated that "areas of the business that do not directly support our core business goals" will see the cuts.
- WeWork employees have told Business Insider that teams ranging from various tech teams to its special events teams have been bracing for cuts.
- Read the full, leaked email below.
- For more WeWork stories, click here.
After weeks of official warnings from WeWork's new CEOs and new chairman that layoffs will be coming, chairman Marcelo Claure, said on Monday that cuts will begin 'in earnest" this week.
He indicated that "areas of the business that do not directly support our core business goals" will see the cuts. Employees across the company have been heeding those warnings and looking for new jobs.
The company is expected to layoff thousands, with some news reports pegging the number of cuts at around 4,000 people.
Employees in the company's Chelsea, New York, headquarters have been so focused on finding their next place of employment that one person described that office like a ghost town. "Every one is working from home or checked out. I haven't been to a meeting in a couple of months," one person described.
Claure rescheduled an all-hands meeting from Tuesday to Friday which appears to add credence to internal rumors that layoffs will happen on Thursday.
WeWork declined to comment on the email.
Here's Claure's full memo sent to the troops on Monday:
WeWork Team,
This coming week is an important one in the future of WeWork. We are marking our 10th anniversary since WeWork broke ground and started what was nothing short of a reinvention of the way people work, and we are just getting started.
We will need a more efficient, more focused and even more customer-centric organization to grow and continue to help our members change the way they work, and meet their needs. That requires changing WeWork's team to match our customer-centric priority.
As I said at our last All Company Meeting, in the areas of the business that do not directly support our core business goals, we have to make some necessary job eliminations.
This is difficult, especially given the energy and commitment so many have contributed. But it is necessary and we are taking steps to provide support and implement these actions in a way that respects and recognizes our colleagues' service. Through this process, which will start in earnest this week in the U.S., we are going to eliminate and scale back certain functions and responsibilities, which will increase efficiency and also accountability. These actions will make us stronger and better able to generate even more opportunities over the coming months and years.
In fact, we have been hard at work defining our immediate next steps to shape the future of WeWork, and I am looking forward to sharing those with you directly at the All Company Meeting that we had originally scheduled for tomorrow. On further reflection and out of respect for the people who will be separated this week, we are rescheduling our All Company Meeting to Friday at 10:00 a.m. New York time. I apologize for the late notice and any inconvenience.
- Now read:
- Insiders say WeWork's IT is a patchwork of cheap devices and Band-Aid fixes that will take millions to fix
- WeWork's toxic phone booths were created in-house by its Powered by We business
- Read the email from WeWork's new chairman where he confirms layoffs and says: 'What we are lacking is focus' and 'accountability'
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