"Shopify to reduce workforce by 20%, sells logistics business to Flexport for 13% equity", 4 May 2023

Shopify revealed... that it’s laying off 20% of its workforce, impacting more than 2,000 people, and is selling its logistics business to Flexport for roughly 13% in stock.

The news comes some 10 months after Shopify announced that it was reducing 10% of its workforce — roughly 1,000 people — and follows a trend that has seen many big technology companies engage in several rounds of redundancies in response to economic headwinds.

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It’s difficult to know exactly how many people are impacted by Shopify’s latest round of layoffs, but according to its own website it has more than 11,600 employees, a figure it only updated from 10,000 employees a few months ago. This headcount hike doesn’t make a great deal of sense if it laid off 1,000 employees last year, but a likely answer is Shopify simply hadn’t updated the figure in the wake of a trio of acquisitions it made last year, including Deliverr.

Going by Shopify’s most recent self-reported numbers, today’s news likely impacts in the region of 2,300 workers. The company says that those impacted will receive a minimum of 16 weeks severance pay, plus an additional week for every year served at Shopify. They will also receive medical benefits for that same duration.