Finder staff shocked by ‘abrupt’ job cuts as 15% of the business is restructured

The Australian company has suddenly cut jobs, leaving staff “devastated” by the “abrupt” sackings which have sent shockwaves through the business.

Yet another Australian tech company has had to cut jobs as the global ‘tech wreck’ worsens amid tough market conditions.

On Thursday, comparison website Finder.com.au laid off a number of staff across its global operations including in Australia.

In all, 15 per cent of Finder’s staff have been caught up in the company’s “restructuring”, a spokesperson confirmed to news.com.au on Friday.

Finder employed about 500 people globally prior to the redundancy rounds.

Contractors, freelancers and permanent full-time workers have “been impacted”.

One of those affected staff members is videographer Tobias Venus, who worked at Finder for more than four years and was then “abruptly” dropped in a move he said was “shocking”.

I (and quite a few others) am redundant at Finder today.
I’ve been at Finder for over 4 years and to be let go so abruptly is frankly, pretty devastating and kind of shocking because it really came out of nowhere.⁰⁰

But it's not all bad! 🧵

— Tobias Venus 📸 (@TobyGV) February 2, 2023

“I (and quite a few others) am redundant at Finder today,” Mr Venus wrote on Twitter.

“I’ve been at Finder for over 4 years and to be let go so abruptly is frankly, pretty devastating and kind of shocking because it really came out of nowhere.”

There are currently four jobs being advertised for the company, but only one in Australia in its Sydney office. The others are roles based in the Philippines, the UK and Poland.

A Finder spokesperson said 15 per cent of staff were being cut or redeployed as part of the company’s restructuring.

“Our immediate priority as a company is very much to support impacted crew,” they told news.com.au.

“We will continue to do everything we can – including career, wellbeing and financial support – to help anyone who may leave Finder to thrive in what comes next.

“We remain firmly focused on the future growth of the comparison business in our core markets and building our membership proposition.”

There are four jobs still being advertised on Finder’s website.

Finder has had a tough few months, reportedly enduring a loss of $27 million for the 2022 financial year, down considerably from the year before when it made $1.6 million profit.

It also took a punt on cryptocurrency that did not pay off by a long shot.

The firm launched Finder Earn, a way for customers to invest in a stablecoin and earn a 4 per cent return or in some cases 6 per cent, in November 2021, right before the crypto crash which has yet to recover.

In December last year, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) commenced civil proceedings in the Federal Court against Finder regarding their new crypto product.

ASIC alleged the company provided unlicensed financial services, breached product disclosure requirements and failed to comply with design and distribution obligations.

The Finder Earn product was closed last month in what the company claimed was a strategic business decision due to rising interest rates making the product less attractive.

Finder founders Fred Schebesta, Jeremy Cabral and Frank Restuccia. Source: Supplied.

It’s far from the first company to be sucked into the so-called “tech meltdown”.

On Tuesday, PayPal slashed its global headcount by 2000 employees – about 7 per cent of its workforce.

Last month, Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy told employees the company would act on the findings of a recent review and cut more than 18,000 jobs – around 6 per cent of the online retail giant’s global corporate workforce.

Google’s parent company Alphabet also enacted large-scale restructuring, announcing that 12,000 jobs would be cut globally, despite it earning more than $A7 billion in Australia in 2021, while Alphabet’s third-quarter sales globally topped $US57.27 billion ($A81.23 billion).

Meanwhile, Facebook’s parent company founded by Mark Zuckerberg announced the first lay-offs in its 18-year history in November – cutting 13 per cent of its workforce – about 11,000 jobs.

Global software giant Salesforce announced in January it would cut about 8000 employees, in the biggest round of lay-offs in its 24-year history, after already letting go of about 1000 people in a round of redundancies in November.

Closer to home, Australian start-ups and tech companies have also had to shed their staff to survive turbulent market conditions.

An Australian social media start-up called Linktree that was recently valued at $1.78 billion sacked 17 per cent of staff from its global operations.

Then there was Australian healthcare start-up Eucalyptus that provides treatments for obesity, acne and erectile dysfunction, which fired up to 20 per cent of staff after an investment firm pulled its funding at the last minute.

Debt collection start-up Indebted let go of 40 of its employees just before the end of the financial year, despite its valuation soaring to more than $200 million, with most of the redundancies made across sales and marketing.

The growing list of redundancies also included Australian buy now, pay later provider Brighte, that offers money for home improvements and solar power, which let go of 15 per cent of its staff in June, and another BNPL called BizPay which made 30 per cent of its workforce redundant.

Originally published as Finder staff shocked by ‘abrupt’ job cuts as 15% of the business is restructured