Caravan, blaming a “recession” on car sales, said it is cutting 2,500 jobs and informed some workers of the layoffs via Zoom. The online car retailer also sent an email to CEO Ernie Garcia III workers in which he said most of the cuts would be in the company’s operations division.
“I’m sorry,” Garcia said in an email.
Shares of Carvana fell $ 6.66, or 18 percent, to $ 30 on Wednesday. Shares of the company have fallen 87% since the beginning of the year amid slowing growth and rising vehicle prices.
Garcia, whose multimillion-dollar father is a major shareholder in Carvana, said workers who lose their jobs will receive four weeks ’pay and one week for each year of service to the company. In a regulatory filing, the Phoenix-based company also said its executive team is paid with the rest of the year to help fund workers’ severance pay.
Reaction on social media, even among people who said they were cut during the round of layoffs, was negative. Many criticized Carvana for relying on Zoom and email to inform workers they were losing their jobs.
“Fear Experience”
Two workers who lost their jobs in the layoffs told CBS MoneyWatch that they had heard nothing directly from Caravan executives. Instead, they were first notified via Garcia’s email Tuesday morning, and soon after lost access to the company’s corporate network, including email and Slack. They received text messages telling them to attend a Zoom meeting later that morning, where a woman informed them that their jobs had been cut.
“It was a very scary experience,” said Jay Romero, 30, who had worked for Caravan for more than two years in Phoenix. “I had no support from anyone: no direction, no team.”
He added: “One of Carvana’s slogans is ‘Treat customers the way you would treat your own mother,’ and they didn’t treat us that way as employees.”
Another worker who was fired told employees that they were told to continue working even after receiving the email notifying them of the job cuts. Leigh Frantz, 26, of North Liberty, Iowa, also said he had no direct contact with executives about the loss of his job and, like Romero, only learned that he had been fired after receiving a job. email and Zoom call.
“They were making massive layoffs on these Zoom calls,” Frantz told CBS MoneyWatch, saying a woman read a previously written script to let them know they had lost their jobs. Workers were unable to ask questions on the Zoom call. “It was so disrespectful.”
In an email to CBS MoneyWatch, Carvana said she had “as many conversations as we could in person, and when that wasn’t possible in person, we talked to our team members through Zoom.” The spokesman added: “Not all conversations were via Zoom.”
Shades of Better.com?
The incident recalls another incident late last year when real estate company Better.com asked 900 employees to attend a Zoom call before the holidays. But instead of delivering a year-end message to workers, CEO Vishal Garg informed attendees that they were firing. Garg’s mass dismissal sparked outrage, and people called the mass dismissal “big” videos and criticized his time during the holidays.
Carvana, which sells used cars online to buyers, said the layoffs accounted for 12 percent of its workforce.
“Recent macroeconomic factors have pushed the car retail trade into recession,” the company said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch.
“While Carvana continues to grow, our growth is slower than we originally prepared for in 2022, and we made the difficult decision to reduce the size of certain operations teams to better align with the current needs of the business, “the company added.
The layoffs come just weeks after Carvana posted a $ 506 million loss in the first quarter, six times more than the same period last year. The company also recently acquired Adesa USA’s used vehicle auction business for $ 2.2 billion.
—With reports from the Associated Press.
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