Lyft To Shutter Car Rental Unit While Cutting 60 Jobs - Taipei Times

Lyft Inc plans to shutter its vehicle-rental business and cut about 60 jobs as the ride-hailing giant grapples with a labor shortage and a fall in its stock price.

The layoffs affect less than 2 percent of Lyft’s 4,600 employees, and are concentrated within the rentals unit.

“We have decided to discontinue Lyft’s first-party rentals business to focus on our best-in-class third-party rentals with Sixt and Hertz,” spokeswoman Jodi Seth said in a statement. “This decision will ensure we continue to have national coverage and offer riders a more seamless booking experience.”

Lyft in May said that it would slow hiring and trim expenses in parts of the company, which has been especially hard hit by a technology stock rout this year. Its shares have lost more than two-thirds of their value this year.

The stock decline accelerated when the San Francisco-based company indicated it would be ramping up spending on driver incentives to cope with a persistent labor shortage.

Separately, Microsoft Corp is eliminating many open jobs, including in its Azure cloud business and its security software unit, as the economy continues to weaken.

These hiring cuts are to continue for the foreseeable future, Microsoft said, while not identifying which departments and businesses are affected.

The company said it is honoring job offers that have already been made for open roles and is making some exceptions for critical jobs.

It is an expansion of a hiring slowdown disclosed in May, which mostly affected the firm’s Windows, Office and Teams groups.

Earlier this month, Microsoft cut less than 1 percent of its 180,000-person workforce, affecting groups such as consulting and customer solutions, but said it planned to finish the current fiscal year with an increased headcount.

The moves follow others in technology. Google CEO Sundar Pichai told staff to expect a hiring slowdown for the remainder of the year.

Apple Inc is also planning to slow hiring and spending at some divisions next year, sources said on Monday.