Checkr, a 10-year-old startup that offers employee background checks and was last valued at $5 billion in April 2022, has laid off 382 employees as companies are not significantly hiring talent.
TechCrunch exclusively learned that Checkr conducted the layoffs across all departments and different levels on Tuesday.
“In response to economic conditions that have impacted companies’ hiring, we made the difficult and painful decision to reduce the size of our team.
This will allow us to operate more efficiently and ensure the long-term health of our business,” a Checkr spokesperson said in the statement.
The job cuts — which affected 32% of the company’s workforce — came nearly two years after Checkr announced the acquisition of Inflection, the startup behind GoodHire, a background-checking platform for small- and mid-sized businesses.
IBM has pledged to skill 2 million people in AI by 2030; Intel has said it’ll upskill over 30 million with AI in the same timeframe.
Yet it’s not clear how many AI roles will be available then.
According to a recent analysis by Lightcast, a labor market analytics firm, the demand for AI roles is decreasing, not increasing.
“Consortium members commit to developing worker pathways particularly in job sectors that will increasingly integrate artificial intelligence technology,” the spokesperson said.
Big Tech has big promises to keep, particularly where it concerns the future of work and the tech industry’s role in shaping it.
LinkedIn, the Microsoft-owned social platform, has made a name for itself primarily as a platform for people looking to network and pick up knowledge for professional purposes, and for recruitment — a business that now has more than 900 million users.
Now, to boost the time people are spending on the platform, the company is breaking into a totally new area: gaming.
App researchers have started to find code that points to the work LinkedIn is doing.
The LinkedIn spokesperson declined to say how and if Microsoft is involved in the gaming project at LinkedIn.
Facebook, the world’s biggest social network, has been a major driver of social gaming over the years.
It has heavily invested in its supply chain infrastructure over the years, with a particular focus on reducing delivery times for grocery items.
Quick-commerce accounts for about 40% of the online grocery delivery category, the analysts said.
“Quick commerce with a potential TAM of ~$45 billion (~7% of the grocery market of $620 billion),” they wrote.
We estimate quick-commerce GMV to grow to $6.2 billion by 2025.”Indian news outlet Entrackr first reported some of the details of Flipkart’s instant commerce play Thursday.
We constantly work towards delivering a wide range of products to customers with speed,” a Flipkart spokesperson said.
Three local councils in the United Kingdom continue to experience disruption to their online services, a week after confirming a cyberattack had knocked some systems offline.
Robert Davis, a spokesperson for Canterbury City Council, told TechCrunch last week that the council’s initial investigation suggests that no customer data was accessed.
However, the U.K.’s Information Commissioner’s Office told TechCrunch on Friday that the data regulator has received a breach report from the three councils.
Thanet District Council spokesperson Clare Winter shared an updated statement with TechCrunch, which has also been published on the council’s website.
“Thanet District Council is currently limiting access to a number of its online systems,” the statement reads.
As Amazon initiates job cuts across its entire business, including its streaming division, the e-commerce giant is now laying off employees within its Buy with Prime segment.
Launched in 2022, Buy with Prime is a service that enables third-party merchants to offer Prime benefits like free shipping and returns.
Buy with Prime expanded its availability in early 2023, adding more U.S. brands like BigCommerce and Sustainable Glam.
“Buy with Prime is a top priority for Amazon, with strong adoption from merchants and positive feedback from customers, and we will continue investing significant resources in Buy with Prime to build on that momentum.
Earlier this month, Amazon laid off 500 Twitch workers and hundreds of employees at Prime Video and MGM Studios.
Yet another series of layoffs has hit Google, this time at its video-sharing platform, YouTube.
The company will eliminate 100 employees, a spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch.
Last week, Google laid off more than 1,000 workers across several divisions, including engineering, services and voice-activated product Google Assistant.
“As we’ve said, we’re responsibly investing in our company’s biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead,” a Google spokesperson said in a provided statement.
“We’re continuing to support any impacted employees as they look for new roles here at Google and beyond,” the spokesperson added.
SEC’s X account hacked, sharing ‘unauthorized tweet’ regarding spot bitcoin ETF The agency has "not approved" the listing and trading of spot bitcoin ETFs, chair Gary Gensler saysThe U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s X account has been hacked, a spokesperson confirmed with TechCrunch on Tuesday afternoon.
The unauthorized tweet regarding bitcoin ETFs was not made by the SEC or its staff,” the spokesperson said.
The unauthorized post has since been deleted.
Around 4:30 p.m. EST, SEC Chair Gary Gensler tweeted, “The @SECGov twitter account was compromised, and an unauthorized tweet was posted.
The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products.”After the fake post went out, Bitcoin’s price spiked near $48,000 but has since fallen around $45,700, according to CoinMarketCap data.
E-commerce and fintech company Bolt, which was at one time the subject of a federal probe, confirmed it laid off 29% of its staff, according to a company spokesperson.
This latest round of layoffs, which the spokesperson said happened last week, follow a handful of other layoffs made by the company since 2022.
It’s not clear how many employees the company had at the time of the layoffs or which roles were impacted.
The company, which provides software to retailers to speed up checkout, raised around $1 billion in total venture-backed funding and at one time was valued at $11 billion.
The company announced partnerships with retailers, including Saks OFF 5TH, Shinola, Filson, Lafayette 148 and Toys”R”Us, in November.
