CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Stock trading app company Robinhood confirmed Wednesday it is closing its Charlotte office amid a new round of companywide layoffs.
Robinhood CEO Vlad Teven announced the companywide layoffs in a Tuesday blog post. High inflation and a recent cryptocurrency crash forced the layoffs at the online trading platform company, Teven wrote.
The company is reducing its employment by about 23%, Teven wrote. Based on previously reported employment numbers, that’s about 795 workers.
The Charlotte office is shutting down as part of Robinhood’s restructuring, company spokesman Casey Becker confirmed to The Charlotte Observer.
The office — which opened just last year in a tower on S. Tryon Street — served as a customer support and account operations center. Robinhood previously told the Observer the Charlotte location would have at least 150 employees and could potentially expand to 250.
“Employees in Charlotte who remain with Robinhood will begin working under our work-from-anywhere model,” Becker said.
Becker declined to say how many workers are currently in Charlotte or how many in the region were let go by the fintech firm. It was not immediately clear when the closure would occur.
Teven wrote that employees who were terminated can remain with Robinhood through Oct. 1 with regular pay and benefits.
In the April cuts, a “small number” of Charlotte staff were let go, the company told the Observer at the time. Before April’s layoffs, the company employed around 3,800. The number had shrunk to about 3,460 after the company said it cut the number of employees by 9%.
Robinhood in Charlotte
In March 2021, the company announced plans to come to Charlotte.
The expansion was projected to bring 400 jobs and an $11.7 million investment from the Silicon Valley-based tech group.
Robinhood was slated to receive up to $3.7 million in combined incentives from the state and city for coming to Charlotte, Gov. Roy Cooper’s office said last year. Such tax incentives are typically tied to the completion of job creation targets.
Robinhood previously told the Observer the Charlotte location would have at least 150 employees and could potentially expand to 250.
The average salary for the new jobs were just over $76,000, state officials said. Charlotte beat out Denver, Fort Mill, South Carolina, and Tempe, Arizona, for the expansion.
Staffing, cryptocurrency issues
Robinhood was overstaffed last year after leadership hired more workers assuming the “heightened retail engagement” in stock and cryptocurrency markets would continue in 2022, Teven wrote.
From 2020 to 2021, Robinhood expanded to around six times the number of employees it had before then, Teven wrote in a blog about the April layoffs.
“In this new environment, we are operating with more staffing than appropriate,” Teven wrote in Tuesday’s blog.
Following the layoffs, Robinhood will adopt a new business structure. General managers will now oversee individual businesses to remove redundant roles and simplify hierarchies, Teven wrote.
Robinhood will offer a cash severance, payment of insurance premiums and job search assistance. Employees who were laid off can also meet with the company to discuss their situations and needs.
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