Uber lays off 3,500 employees in a three-minute-long Zoom call, says ‘today will be your last working day’

Uber has laid off 3,500 of its workforce via a Zoom call that lasted for a little over three minutes. The employees were informed about the job cuts by Ruffin Chaveleau who heads the ride-hailing app’s Phoenix Center of Excellence. According to a Daily Mail report, Chevaleau informed the staff that the rides business is down by more than half and there is not enough work for many frontline customer support employees. “[As a result] we are eliminating 3,500 frontline customer support roles.Your role is impacted and today will be your last working day with Uber. You will remain on payroll until the date noted in your severance package,” Chevaleau said. [caption id=“attachment_5136051” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. PTI[/caption] The report added that Chaveleau’s voice cracked as she informed the employees that “no one wants to be on a call like this.” According to a report by USA Today, Uber said, “It’s never easy or uncomplicated to let employees go, and that’s only been more true during this unprecedented period, where we are all working from home across dozens of cities and countries." Chaveleau said for the foreseeable future, Uber’s business will be smaller as fewer people are taking trips. “Our size will have to be rationalised based on business needs,” she said in the call. Last week, Uber Technologies Inc had said that it will cut about 3,700 full-time jobs. As per a report by Reuters, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said he will forgo his base salary for the remainder of the year due to COVID-19 pandemic. Uber reported a net loss of $2.9 billion in the first quarter of this year, including a $2.1 billion write-down on the value of some of its investments. The company’s revenue was $3.5 billion, up 14 per cent from the year-ago period, but rides were down 3 per cent from the first quarter of 2019.