Uber rival Lyft sack 26% employees in second round of job cuts

Ride-hailing company Lyft Inc said on Thursday it will lay off about 1,072 employees, or 26% of its workforce.David Risher, who took over earlier this month as chief executive, had recently said the company will significantly cut jobs, without providing the number of jobs that would be affected.Lyft will also eliminate more than 250 open positions and incur about $41 million to $47 million in costs related to severance and employee benefits in the second quarter, it said in an exchange filing.

This is the second round of job cuts by Lyft, which faces competition from bigger rival Uber Technologies Inc in a slowing economy. It had laid off about 683 employees, or 13% of its then workforce, in November.It will also take additional costs related to stock-based compensations, which it said cannot be estimated at the time.The money saved from job cuts will be used to support service-level improvements for riders and drivers, Lyft said.