Dropbox is reducing 20% ​​of its global workforce and eliminating 500 jobs

Dropbox is laying off 20% of its global workforce, equivalent to 528 positions, CEO Drew Houston announced Wednesday in a note to employees.

The company is in a “transition phase” as its file sync and share business and its Dash artificial intelligence search feature mature, Houston wrote.

“It is no longer sustainable to manage this transition while maintaining our current structure and investment levels,” he said in his note.

The move follows a 16% workforce reduction at Dropbox in April 2023, which affected 500 employees. At the time, Houston wrote that the cuts were due to slowing growth, economic headwinds and the need to invest more resources and personnel in the increasingly competitive AI race.

Dropbox will make cuts in areas of the business where the company is “overinvested or underperforming,” while working toward a “flatter, more efficient” team structure, Houston wrote.

“We continue to see weakening demand and macroeconomic headwinds in our core business,” Houston wrote. “But external factors are only part of the story. We have heard from many of you that our organizational structure has become overly complex and that we are being held back by too many layers of management.”

Affected employees will receive 16 weeks of pay starting Wednesday, with an additional week of pay for each completed year of employment with the company.

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