eBay reduce global workforce by 10%
by Sue Bailey
eBay have announced that they are reducing their global workforce by around 10%, affecting approximately 1,000 employees worldwide, as well as several hundred temporary workers. eBay’s CEO John Donahoe said “while never an easy decision to make, these reductions will help improve our operations and strengthen our ability to continue investing in growth.”
There is not yet any detail as to exactly where staff cuts will hit, though eBay UK and eBay Italy have both said that there will be no visible consequences for their site or customer service personnel. These announcements mention reorganising internal-facing teams throughout Europe, “with the aim of ultimately making eBay simpler, safer and more consistent to use”.
The original announcement was contained in a press release concerning eBay’s acquisition of payment service Bill Me Later and two Danish classified ads sites. But somehow, I don’t think this bad news is going to stay buried.
The company also stated it expects to hit the low end of its Q3 2008 revenue guidance; Q3 figures are due to be announced on 15th October. An investor call on today’s announcements is taking place any minute, so more information may emerge from that. We’ll keep you posted.
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27 Responses to “eBay reduce global workforce by 10%”
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Paypal,Paypal,Paypal.
If the investors don’t force a split soon they may as well rename it Paypal and bin eBay all together.
No doubt cuts in customer service staff, that is eBay’s last concern.
‘never an easy decision to make’. Bull, John, you have made so many ill-thought out zany decisions. It would not be your style to think something through.. Your PR buffing shiny style of making negative announcements does not change the fact that every announcement made since you took over has been NEGATIVE, DEMORALISING and DETRIMENTAL to eBay, it’s staff and it’s user base.
Stock down 43% in a year! Good decision making John, you will go down in the hall of fame and cheesy grins for ineptness and contempt for your users.
Sellers out of work, staff out of work, let’s hope John is next.. you reap what you sow.
I disagree,
I love the new search, sales are up massively, so are hits etc etc
30 day bin’s are wonderful
I do hope you were being sarcastic.
If not, all is rosy until someone rams a stick in the spokes of your successful business, leaving you no choice but to declare your successful business a write-off.
The egomaniac that speaks softly and carries that big stick? John Donahoe.
all I am saying is that some aspects of the recent changes have had a very positive impact on our Ebay business and I have read the same of many others,
all changes effect sellers in different ways and to be honest I think that was Ebay’s plan,
imho of course
JD, once a consultant, always a consultant, all they ever do is ruin businesses.
I wonder how low the share price has to go, before he gets hoofed out.
It’s been under $17.50 today, strange to think that it was almost double that 6 months ago, which roughly co-incided with the changes.
Interestingly, announcements of staff redundancies usually push up the share price but that isn’t happening. For anyone who would say that this is the credit crunch et al, this should benefit the likes of ebay, as it should be a place where people head for to get a bargain/buy secondhand/offload stuff to bring in some spare cash.
Q3 reports should be out soon, should make interesting reading for the shareholders.
@ # 6
Hector Ruiz ruined AMD. It took years for him to voluntarily leave. His company’s shares went from about $40 to $5 during a two year period due to changes he implemented. As long as JD doesn’t do anything illegal or cause a huge scandal don’t expect him to go anywhere soon.
#7
Oh, I don’t expect JD to leave, he’s not the sort of person to fall on his sword.
The only way he will go is to be booted out or with a golden parachute, hopefully the former. Unfortunately the credit crunch is giving him a smokescreen.
Techcrunch UK yesterday (6th) reported “eBay UK has today put three quarters of their UK staff on notice for redundancy.
This seems VERY hard to believe but I’ve put a link below….
http://uk.techcrunch.com/2008/...../#comments
JD quote : ‘ these reductions will help improve our operations and strengthen our ability to continue investing in growth’
Yeah right John, what are you smokin these days ?
I have not seen an improvement in Ebay for years, all that has happened is red tape, red tape and more red tape. Followed by restrictions and removal of rights and then more red tape. And then followed by one rule for one seller and another rule for another seller.
Sellers have been shafted left, right and centre and this is how Ebay treats it’s core revenue makers ?
I, like many other Powersellers no longer use Ebay as their main income as they are just too much hassle.
As one of the richest new businesses in the world they cannot even offer telephone support, in fact they cannot even police their own site ! They rely solely on their members to police the site, the site that they own and where they make rules ! The rule makers that cannot control their own site ??
How many other businesses demand that their paying customers
work for them and help run their business? None I think. In fact how many customers would agree to work for a company and pay them for the pleasure ? This can only happen in the world of Ebay/Paypal.
Ebay grew too fast too soon and lost touch with the paying customers.
Example: Once I has a serious complaint, after numerous automated emails from staff who knew nothing about the issue I wrote to 14 Ebay key staff at Ebay UK & the US. These were key people, people in authority as my compalint was serious.
How many replies did I receive ? None !
Then a whole 4 months later I received a letter with no date, no signature, no name, no explanation, no solution, no courtesy at all. In fact it was just like an automated email that refused to listen to my issue, just a ‘we have made our decision and that’s final’ type response.
Ebay lost the plot years ago and they are getting progressively worse by the day. If Ebay make any changes they are ONLY for the good of Ebay
and for their profitability, they may fluff it up a little and tell you it’s for their customers but look deeper and you will see they do things for them (and maybe a little for the buyers).
Buyers will be safe as without buyers Ebay is nothing but they seem to have forgotten about sellers and how to look after them.
The bubble WILL soon burst, at present the bubble is being let down slowly and they desperately need somone who knows about business to inject air back into the bubble !
All that massive growth in 10 years can easily be lost in 5 years…. watch this space.
#9: it might be hard to believe, Linda, but rumour suggests TechCrunch’s source is essentially correct.
well its no good squarking about fees and then worrying about who is going to get the chop
I have not a clue what or who works for ebay uk or what they do,
though it would not surprise me if most of them are employed answering questions and dealing with the self appointed guardians of ebay
# 9 &11
FX
Jaw drops, head shakes, leans back in chair.
/FX
though I will say these are real people, with real lives, and real families, with real bills to pay, and they have my respect and sympathy
Wouldn’t have thought that ‘eBay Customer Service’ looks great on your your CV as last employment either.
#15
Oh god yes.
Can you imagine the prospective employer questions at the interview.
So tell about your achievements in your last job.
Tell about some issue/problem you had in your last job and how you overcame it and what you did that was different to how others did it.
14 – Genuinely couldn’t agree more …
… but …
… LOL at 15 and 16 – too true.
Ebay customer support is Dire ,
though I dont think its because of those that do the job, I think its more to do with what they are asked to do .their workload ,
then not least the ignorant sods they need to deal with ,if my buyers are anything to judge the quality of customers on ebay by
North – I’m not criticising individuals but sadly it is all too true that the reputation of an employer can tar its employees and kybosh them getting another job, however good they are personally at their job within its confines or could have been if not confined that way.
#18 Spot on.
If staff are given the support, training and the proper tools it makes a big difference, thats maybe why when you ask Amazon a question you get a response that relates to the question and when you ask custard a question it’s like Family Fortunes.
eBay must know that there customer (custard) support is laughed at around the world but they obviously don’t care much because it never improves, if anything front line support has got worse especially custard email support, thats like entering the Twilight Zone wearing 3D specs.
We just dont bother contacting ebay support these days they just infuriate us with the patronising attitude of the response
How much of eBay’s customer support staff is UK based anyway?
22 – I don’t think redundancy is great fun anywhere.
23 – neither do I.
Obviously an person being made redundant is noy good for them (just ask the backroom Bankers).
Hopefully any new prespective employers will not be someone who has the hump with ebay over some issue that was never resolved…….
Perhaps this is why the customer service support telephone number has disappeared from the ebay.co.uk website (today @ 19.15pm)
Head of Ebays PR memo to Staff
http://valleywag.com/5060730/e.....on-layoffs