谷歌執行長在發給員工的電子郵件中說，谷歌旗下的導航和地圖服務公司Waze將裁員5%，即555名員工中的30人。Waze還將關閉其在亞太和拉丁美洲地區的多個辦事處，以尋求將業務重點重新放在某些市場上。

Waze說，裁員的部分原因是冠狀病毒的流行，它已經清空了世界各地的道路，並導致許多城市進入封鎖狀態。隨著避難所和在家工作成為新的常態，越來越少的人使用Waze來滿足他們的日常導航需求。應用程式上的眼球減少意味著公司的廣告收入減少。

據報道，2013年穀歌以11億美元收購了Waze，該公司的月活躍使用者數（即每月使用該應用程式的客戶數）和行駛公里數（該公司衡量客戶在使用Waze時行駛距離的指標）都出現了下降。

今年4月，Waze在一篇部落格文章中闡述了其中一些數字下降的嚴重程度。在全球範圍內，與2月份相比，3月份開始實施封鎖時，Waze的客戶開車裡程減少了60%。義大利跌幅最大，達90%。美國也下跌了約60%。

但隨著疫情的蔓延，這些數字變得更糟。Waze說，在封鎖期間，全球每週行駛公里數一度下降了70%。自今年6月以來，隨著限制取消的國家的人們重返工作崗位，Waze開始看到駕駛的復甦。在全球範圍內，該公司表示，它已恢復到COVID之前的駕駛水平。

Waze公司執行長諾姆·巴丁（Noam Bardin）在郵件中說，Waze公司將“重新考慮優先事項”，“我們決定將資源集中在為使用者改進產品上，加快對技術基礎設施的投資，並將銷售和營銷工作的重點重新放在少數高價值國家。”

該公司成立兩年的拼車服務Waze Carpool也受到了影響。隨著越來越多的人在家工作，越來越少的人使用Waze Carpool與同事或其他在類似路線上工作的鄰居一起乘車。因此，Waze正在減少其獨立拼車服務的人數。一位發言人說，今年早些時候，Waze有望在全球範圍內完成每月100萬次的拼車出行，而現在公司離這還差得遠。

收到解僱通知的30人中，大多數來自公司的銷售、市場營銷和合作部門。但這並不是永久性的裁員：Waze表示，計劃在未來幾個月為其技術和工程團隊招聘相當數量的員工。

Waze還關閉了在馬來西亞、新加坡、哥倫比亞、智利和阿根廷等國的辦事處，以期將更多的業務重點放在業務增長的國家。這包括美國、英國、法國、巴西、加拿大、義大利和墨西哥。

Waze顯然不是唯一一家在流感大流行期間遭遇裁員的科技公司，甚至運輸公司。Uber、Lyft、Yelp、Mozilla、Kickstarter、Lime、Sonos、Glitch和其他幾十家公司都在流感大流行期間裁員。由於美國失業率仍保持在8.4%（儘管實際數字可能要高得多），仍有數千萬人失業。

Waze意識到在流感大流行期間裁員是殘忍的。該公司表示，它承諾在2021年初之前為那些被解僱的員工提供一個緩衝，包括遣散費、獎金和醫療保險。

以下是Waze執行長Noam Bardin致員工的完整說明：

Dear Wazers,

With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, many cities and countries have enforced travel restricti*** to curb the spread of the disease, so it’s no surprise that our users are driving less (or have stopped altogether), leading to a significant drop in kilometers driven (KMDs), Carpools, and Ad revenue.

This has forced us to rethink priorities and we’ve decided to focus our resources on product improvements for our users, accelerate our investments in technical infrastructure, and refocus our sales and marketing efforts on a **all number of high-value countries. These investments ensure the long-term success of Waze and that we exit this pandemic stronger than we entered it.

I have always strived to maintain a transparent culture at Waze, so I want to share with you that in order to continue and accelerate our investment in Engineering and other technical positi***, I have decided to close 30 roles in other parts of Waze. I’m sorry this email is coming over at such a late hour but I wanted to make sure we reached out to all impacted employees first.

At a high-level, these are the impacted areas:

Ads Sales Team: The Ads team will pare back and focus on the key markets that drive 93% of revenue and carry 95% of the KMDs we sell in. This means we will be closing the on-the-ground Sales offices in APAC (Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia) and **aller LATAM markets (Colombia, Argentina, Chile). We will continue servicing these countries via increased investments in Waze Local Starter, supported by our SMB teams in our main sales hubs.

Partnership Team: Uncertainty of back-to-work plans from our employer partners and with employees continuing to work from home means that we will be shrinking the Carpool Partnerships team. Our narrowed product focus also means we’ll reduce our product partnerships and private & public sector teams.

Marketing Team: The focus on fewer markets and adjustments in our partnership investments means that we will be reducing the size of the Marketing team.

Performance Marketing Team: We are making investments in Product to support our Growth efforts and are restructuring the Performance Marketing team to realign around these efforts.

Letting Wazers go is an extremely painful process for all of us. I want to make it clear that these reducti*** are being made due to the c***traints created by the pandemic and to support investments in our focus areas, and not because of anyone’s acti*** or performance.

The leaving Wazers were a critical part of our growth up to now and it is important that we take care of those leaving as best we can. Our goal is to try and help as much as possible and ease this process for them. We’ve done our best to support those affected with a severance package that includes:

Career Transition: The Google Internal Mobility teams have been working with us and will help all impacted employees search for opportunities within Google.

Outplacement Services: We will be offering outplacement services to all impacted employees from the date of the notice through six month after employment.

Financial: Given the circumstances of the year, we have worked closely with the internal HR teams to ensure that everyone has been taken care of through early 2021 and will be eligible for year-end bonuses.

Healthcare: We are giving each impacted employee as many continued benefits as possible, in accordance with local law.

I ask that we all help in any way we can and support our colleagues, both in highlighting internal roles at Google that we may know about and external opportunities we may be aware of.

I want to thank all of the impacted team members — Waze has become what it is because of your contributi***. These changes are happening due to a global pandemic, and none of this is your fault. We have no doubt that you will bring your talents to a new team and help them become even better, as you’ve done at Waze.

Thank you.

Noam