Business

Layoffs at Bay Area-Based Lyft, Gap, Dropbox

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Thursday was another rough day in the Bay Area when it comes to job security as thousands more layoffs were announced.

Lyft announced more than 1,000 layoffs, a quarter of its entire workforce. Gap cut 1,800 jobs, the second cut for the retail giant in seven months. Dropbox announced 500 layoffs.

According to layoffs.fyi, 14 tech companies have cut jobs in April. In March, 28 companies cut jobs.

"I think there's still a lot of uncertainty about whether we'll be in a full-fledged recession or not," Santa Clara University business Professor Audrey Guo said.

Economic uncertainty means companies don't know how much they'll sell or how many people they can afford to employ.

"It's kind of like a double-edged sword where if we want to fight inflation, there does have to be a slowdown in economic growth," Guo said. "We can't expect inflation and prices to come down if there aren't some layoffs."

Cuts in one area often mean opportunities elsewhere.

"Every time there's a downturn, there's innovation," venture capitalist Nitin Rai said.

Rai said he's seeing openings if people are willing to go to a startup.

"Because there are people like me who are looking for those early ideas, who want to invest early in these companies," he said. "It's not just me. There are a ton of VCs that are probably looking, that are sitting on dry powder that they haven't invested yet."

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