As AIN.Capital has been informed, Astound Commerce now faces a significant personnel reduction. The tech company stated it would affect less than 15 percent of its global staff. According to AIN.Capital’s sources, who are familiar with the current situation, actual numbers are higher.
Who was laid off and where
An employee of Astound Commerce, who requested anonymity, said it would be the second wave of layoffs. The first one happened in November and took about 120 specialists. However, the real number could be larger.
The next, about a month ago, the company fired its CFO. It was a sign that more people would leave the company. Last week, Astound Commerce announced 200 employees had been dismissed. But our whistleblower said 230 specialists lost their jobs.
The majority of Astound Commerce professionals come from Ukraine. So, Ukrainians who stayed home or relocated elsewhere are affected by this layoff wave the most. It is also known that some staff was dismissed in Turkey, the UK, and Bulgaria.
Who left the company at first
Nobody understands how the management decides who must leave and who stays. The criteria of selection remain unknown. Both junior specialists who joined Astound Commerce just recently and top performers who worked for the company for ten years were fired.
Especially the design department was greatly affected, with 60 percent cut. Some teams lost two-thirds of their members at once.
The Recruitment Team in Ukraine has been dismissed entirely. Some people believe the company would switch to India, where it has offices, too.
Mrs. Campbell said that information about the design department layoffs was inaccurate, as was the fact that the company had not attracted any major new contracts in recent months. She also emphasized that 217 people have been dismissed in total. By doing this, however, she didn’t specify over what period of time.
Compensations
As an anonymous source told AIN.Capital, compensations to dismissed employees are paid on time. The company even allows them to keep the equipment.
The only thing is that during the layoffs in the autumn, payment was made in one installment, but now it is divided into two tranches.
Why is it happening now
According to the official statement, Blair Campbell, Editor in Chief at Astound Commerce, said the company aims for great success in 2023. But it could not be confirmed with the current business situation it has. Astound got no big projects for the past few months, as AIN.Capital’s source said.
“Sales managers get no annual bonuses this time. No one of my colleagues seems to have a new project so far,” our anonymous source added.
In 2021, Astound Commerce got funding from the American investor RLH Equity Partners. Since then, Astound has started pursuing positive financial results but has failed to keep them due to the crisis of 2022, so the source. And it was decided to compensate revenue losses with personnel dismissal.
It is important to note that layoffs are occurring throughout the whole IT sector, both in Ukraine and abroad. Astound Commerce is only one of the companies that has officially confirmed the dismissal of a significant percentage of employees.
The reasons are the general global recession, which negatively affects the financial results of both customers and performers. The situation is equally relevant for Ukraine, which is also involved in a full-scale war with Russia, as well as for the United States and Europe, where layoffs are even more extensive or at least more visible.
Most likely, the cuts will continue until global markets stabilize. They may also affect the adjustment of salaries for candidates in the IT field, which is famous for its noticeably higher remunerations for experienced employees. The competition for a position has already increased noticeably. And salary expectations have become more modest.
