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Hundreds of employees of Bird, a scooter startup based in California, were laid off on Friday as the company grapples with decreased demand amid the coronavirus epidemic.

Julia Black (@mjnblack) My friend just got laid off along with 400 other employees by dialing into a pre-recorded Zoom message. Her manager never even called to say goodbye. The virus may be out of your control, but how humanely you handle it is not.

“The unprecedented Covid-19 crisis has forced our leadership team and the board of directors to make many extremely difficult and painful decisions relating to some of your teammates”, the Bird CEO, Travis VanderZanden, wrote to staffers in a memo obtained by the Guardian.



The layoffs represent about 30% of the workforce of the shared scooter company. Bird confirmed the layoffs and said former employees will receive four weeks of pay and three months of health coverage.

The company disputed reports that layoffs were carried out over a pre-recorded message on Zoom video conferencing. From Bird:

“Bird employees are currently all working from home and the impacted individuals received the news on a web-based call. We purposefully and intentionally did not have any video on to protect privacy as we delivered the news live to individuals. A live speaker delivered the news over the web-based call and a slide was projected outlining additional information including four weeks of pay, three months of medical coverage and an extended timeframe to exercise options. Each individual then received a call or email from Bird’s talent team as a follow up. We are eternally grateful to the impacted individuals and wish that the entire situation could have been avoided.”

Bird’s layoffs come as many shared transportation companies struggle in the face of a global pandemic. Lime scooters have suspended service in the Bay Area in light of health concerns and Gig car share took cars off the streets to clean them this week, before reinstating them on Friday.