Indonesia’s largest internet company GoTo Group will cut 1,300 jobs as it seeks to curtail expenses and assuage investor concerns over mounting losses.
The cuts amount to about 12% of the workforce, the company said in a statement Friday. The ride-hailing, e-commerce and fintech company will begin notifying affected employees right away.
GoTo joins tech giants from Apple to Meta Platforms in trimming staff or slowing hiring as companies curtail ambitions and brace for tough times ahead. Job cuts in the industry are nearing levels seen in the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, as tech companies across the globe confront the effects of a deteriorating economic climate and a heightened investor focus on profitability. Sea, Southeast Asia’s largest tech company, cut about 7,000 jobs in the past six months, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Formed through a merger of ride-hailing provider Gojek and e-commerce firm Tokopedia, the company went public in early 2022 in one of the year’s biggest initial public offerings and its shares have lost almost 40% since. GoTo’s statement on the job cuts confirms an earlier Bloomberg News report.
The plan underscores an effort to trim operating expenses as the company prepares to unveil quarterly results on Nov. 21. In August, it reported its second-quarter adjusted loss before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization widened to 4.14 trillion rupiah (US$264 million) from a pro-forma loss of 3.9 trillion rupiah a year earlier.
The company said “it must accelerate its progress towards becoming a truly sustainable and financially independent business, centered on its core offerings of on-demand, e-commerce and financial technology services.”
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GoTo and its publicly traded peers Sea and Grab Holdings -- all of which are loss-making -- have seen valuations drop as they navigate an economic slowdown, rising interest rates and accelerating inflation. GoTo executives have said they are trying to balance spending on growth with its effort to reach profitability.
