The layoff saga in the global tech space continues as Guild, a Denver-headquartered edtech firm has laid off 172 employees with the intention to drive long-term financial growth. 

In an internal email to the employees, Rachel Romer, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Guild, said that the layoffs were extremely painful but necessary for the company’s long-term growth. She also said that the edtech unicorn has taken a go-forward structure, roles and skill sets to enable strategy and create a focused and seamless work structure. 

The affected employees will receive three months of severance pay, medical, dental and vision coverage through the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) for up to 18 months. The company will cover the premiums for the first six months. 

Founded in 2015, Guild is known for offering multiple educational and upskilling programmes to the employees of its corporate partners. It raised $200 million in funding from investors and is valued at $4.4 billion in 2022. 

Tech companies are going through several hardships since 2022. A Mint report revealed that 1,50,000 employees lost their jobs in the global tech space in 2022. All the big tech companies like Meta, Twitter, Google and Walmart were seen to downsize their employee bandwidth fearing recession. Meta announced to layoff 13 per cent of its global employee bandwidth. Since the acrimonious takeover by the maverick billionaire Elon Musk, Twitter also fired 7,500 staff in multiple rounds. 

This year has also not offered any difference. It started with e-commerce giant Amazon announcing to fire 18,000 employees. It was followed by Google’s parent Alphabet and Walmart.