Irish tech unicorn Intercom is to cut just under 5 per cent of its workforce globally as the company prepares for a tougher economic environment.
A total of 49 jobs will be cut from the software company’s 1,000-strong workforce, with the cuts mainly falling on human resources and marketing departments. Twenty-three of those losses will be in the Irish office, where the company employs around 400 people. Ireland serves as an engineering hub for Intercom.
It is understood that staff were informed of the plans at a meeting earlier this evening.
The job losses come after the company was said to have explored all other avenues to cut back on costs. However, it is understood there are no plans for further cuts and the company is continuing to hire for key roles in its research and development, as well its engineering teams. Plans to open its new Dublin office next year are also set to go ahead.
In an email to staff sent following the meeting, chief executive Karen Peacock apologised to those affected by the cuts.
“We are growing, but not as quickly as we had planned, and the broader economic environment has changed significantly in the past year. We need to prepare for a lower growth market environment where efficiency is even more important, and we need to keep our costs in line with our revenue,” she said.
“Over the last few months, we’ve proactively taken steps to reduce costs and ensure we are focusing on the most important things to continue driving value for customers. We don’t take this lightly — these are very difficult decisions, but ones that ensure that we continue building for a strong future.”
Intercom’s current chief marketing officer Anna Griffin is also set to leave the company, but will remain in her role into the autumn to oversee the transition.
Founded in Dublin in 2011 by Eoghan McCabe, Des Traynor, Ciarán Lee and David Barrett, Intercom‘s software platform brings messaging products for sales, marketing and customer support together. Its products enable companies to communicate easily with customers through their own websites and apps, on social media and by email.
The platform is used to send more than 500 million messages per month, with interactions with more than 600 million monthly end users and counts the likes of Microsoft and Amazon as customers.
Intercom is not the only tech company that has cut staff. Social media group Snap recently announced it would cut 20 per cent of its 6,500-strong workforce as it battles a slump in advertising. Klarna, Shopify and Peloton have all announced they would cut back on staff in recent months as the economic chill reached the tech sector.
