Bark Layoffs 2023: What to Know About the Latest BARK Job Cuts

shares of bark (NYSE:BARK) are down 11% today after the pet retailer released disappointing earnings and announced it is laying off 126 employees, or 12% of its workforce.

Bark, an e-commerce company that sells subscription boxes for pets, is the latest in a string of tech companies to announce significant job cuts since the beginning of the year. Bark’s job cuts come as the company reported a net loss of nine cents a share for the most recent quarter, in line with Wall Street estimates.

Prior to today’s sell-off, BARK stock was down 52% over the past 12 months to $1.96 per share.

What happened

In a press release, Bark said it’s trying to achieve $12 million in annual cost savings. To this end, the company is reducing its full-time positions by 12%, or 126 employees. Bark said it will also limit the use of third-party vendors, consultants and contractors going forward. The company said the cost-cutting measures will help it eventually reach profitability.

Bark added that the downsizing will result in a $2 million charge in the fiscal fourth quarter, primarily related to employee severance payments. The cost-cutting moves come as Bark announced that revenue for its most recent quarter totaled $134.3 million, down 5% from the prior-year period. The company reported a net loss of $21.3 million, up 61% from the net loss of $13.2 million reported last year.

Why it matters

Bark is the latest tech company to cut staff as it grapples with difficult macroeconomic conditions. So far in 2023, 334 tech companies have laid off more than 100,000 workers, according to website Layoffs.fyi, which tracks job cuts in the industry. Businesses range from Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) And alphabet (NASDAQ:Google) To intel (NASDAQ:INTC) And meta platforms (NASDAQ:META) have recently announced significant staff cuts.

At the same time, Bark announced his layoffs in private hands Yahoo said it would cut 20% of its staff, equivalent to 1,600 workers. Analysts say the steady drumbeat of layoffs suggests the US economy is fragile at the moment, adding that job cuts in the tech industry could spread to other sectors in the coming months as the impact of higher interest rates spreads affect the economy.

The layoffs are also affecting the regional economy in areas like Silicon Valley, as well as cities like San Francisco and Boston, which have high concentrations of technology workers.

Bark layoffs: What’s next

BARK stock suffers today on news of disappointing earnings and job cuts. More broadly, layoffs in the tech industry continue unabated, which is beginning to weigh on investor sentiment and leading some market commentators to speculate that a dot-com crash 2.0 may be upon us. Be careful out there.

On the day of publication Joel Baglole held a long position in GOOGL. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and are governed by InvestorPlace.com Posting Policies.