Paypal boss calls for compassion as he lays off 2,000 employees

Pay­Pal’s CEO has called for “mutu­al com­pas­sion” as peers lay off thou­sands of employees.

The dig­i­tal pay­ments com­pa­ny has announced it will cut about 7% of its work­force, leav­ing 2,000 peo­ple out of work.

Pay­Pal CEO Dan Schul­man said, “Change is dif­fi­cult, espe­cial­ly when it involves the depar­ture of a val­ued col­league or friend.”

Pay­Pal joins a string of tech com­pa­nies that have cut jobs this year. Ama­zon has announced it will cut 18,000 jobs and Google will cut 12,000. Microsoft announced it would lay off 10,000 people.

After aggres­sive­ly hir­ing dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, tech com­pa­nies are bet­ting on a per­ma­nent dig­i­tal boom to cut jobs. But the reces­sion has forced them to scale back that target.

Shul­man, 65, said retir­ing employ­ees will be treat­ed “with the utmost respect and empa­thy.” He added that he was “con­fi­dent that togeth­er, with mutu­al com­pas­sion… we will move forward.”

Tech morale has plum­met­ed as a result of mass lay­offs. Some employ­ees were found to have been laid off because their cor­po­rate logins were no longer work­ing or their work pass was auto­mat­i­cal­ly disabled.

Shul­man, who received $32 mil­lion in salary and stock-based com­pen­sa­tion last year, is an advo­cate of “stake­hold­er cap­i­tal­ism,” accord­ing to which com­pa­nies serve the inter­ests of not only share­hold­ers but also employ­ees, sup­pli­ers, the plan­et and the gen­er­al pub­lic. should contribute.

This the­o­ry has been crit­i­cized by Repub­li­can politi­cians in the Unit­ed States as a kind of “awak­ened capitalism”.

Shul­man said the com­pa­ny’s val­ues “cen­ter around fight­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion of all kinds.” But the com­pa­ny has come under fire from some British politi­cians last year when it sus­pend­ed pay­ments to free speech advo­cate Toby Young. This ban has since been overturned.

The job cuts come after Pay­Pal announced a stock buy­back pro­gram worth up to $15 bil­lion last sum­mer under pres­sure from activist share­hold­er Elliott Management.

It is also try­ing to cut costs after last year’s decline in stock prices.

Mean­while, chip mak­er Intel plans to cut exec­u­tive pay to save mon­ey with­out lay­offs. A 25% pay cut for the CEO and a 10% cut for oth­er senior executives.