A few months after announcing the layoffs of hundreds of employees, Gopuff continues to trim its workforce.
The 30-minute delivery company last week cut just under 250 workers, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg on Wednesday. According to Gopuff, the layoffs affect the firm’s customer service team and include a mix of full-time and temporary employees.
The cuts are part of an internal restructuring by Gopuff, announced in July. The company had intended to eliminate the roles months ago, but the process was delayed for legal and operational reasons.
“In July Gopuff announced a company-wide reorganization and 10% reduction in workforce as part of a broader restructuring effort to focus on profitability,” the company told Modern Shipper Thursday in an emailed statement. “The most recent impacts to the customer service team were part of this reorganization which we’ve been implementing for the last three months.”
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Social media posts from users claiming to be former Gopuff workers say that the company’s entire driver support team has been disbanded, and that the positions have been outsourced to the Philippines.
“GoPuff laid off all the American workers and decided to ‘restructure’ the company i.e. outsource to foreign companies for cheap. They are a horrible company to do this to us and not send out notice. We woke up to no access to anything and no notice we were fired,” wrote one Reddit user under a post claiming that the entire driver support team had been terminated.
“Former Gopuff Employee — They have terminated the entire Driver Support team on the U.S. side of things. All of the people that you will be dealing with going forward will be outsourced from the Phillipines [sic],” another user replied.
Gopuff clarified in an email that the driver support team falls under customer experience and is not a separate department. It also confirmed that it began the process of using an outsourced customer experience network in February.
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One user posted a video of the termination meeting for customer service employees, during which Jon Bushnel and Brian Dunlap, human resources managers for the customer service team, informed employees of the decision.
“As you may be aware, the customer experience team has been undergoing a reorganization with a focus on supporting the broader business strategy and optimization to support our customers,” Bushnel said. “One of the results of this focus is the elimination of certain positions within the team. I regret to share that your temporary position has been impacted by this reorganization and your role has been eliminated, effective immediately.”
Gopuff in an email said that it is offering severance and transition support to all full-time and hourly employees. Workers have more or less confirmed this, saying they were told that severance packages were “coming soon.”
The firm’s ongoing layoffs will ultimately affect about 1,500 workers globally. The trimming of its workforce also coincides with the reduction of its warehouse footprint — over the summer, it shuttered 76 warehouses, about 12% of its U.S. network.
The moves come as Gopuff contends with rising inflation and a slowing economy, leading it to pursue cost-cutting measures.
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