Coinbase has announced that it is temporarily halting new hiring. In a post on the US company’s website, chief people officer LJ Brock announced that Coinbase is pausing hiring new employees and canceling several job offers that had already been accepted by prospective employees. According to the company, this decision was made due to general market conditions and other priorities at the moment.
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The cryptocurrency market is currently in a bear market, and that has many implications for companies. Coinbase began cutting back on hiring in the middle of last month to make sure the company can weather the tough times. However, the new announcement suggests that the hiring freeze will continue. Brock said the hiring freeze will also affect employees who were hired to replace employees who are leaving the company. He did, however, exclude those hired to take on “security and compliance” roles.
Coinbase isn’t entirely happy with its social NFT marketplace that launched in May, either. According to The Verge, data from Dune Analytics showed that 4,132 people purchased an NFT on the platform within 19 days of its launch, and gross sales totaled $875,000, or an average of $46,000 per day (down from previous months). It doesn’t help that NFT overall have been declining during this time.
Brock says that those affected will benefit from Coinbase's "generous severance policy" and gain access to a "talent center" that provides various career resources, such as interview coaching, resume reviews, and networking opportunities.
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Coinbase's hiring freeze has affected several people who had almost agreed to a job with the company .The company had told employees that they were not at risk from this new policy, but shortly after sent them an email informing them that things had changed.
“You may have seen this week that Coinbase published a post announcing our intentions to slow down hiring so that we can refocus our hiring needs against our higher priority business goals,” Coinbase’s initial email to prospective hires reads. “First and foremost, I wanted to let you know that we are still extremely excited to have you join Coinbase and will not be rescinding the offers of any employees who have already signed or received an offer from us.”
Coinbase has begun adding staff as part of its plan to hire 2,000 employees in 2022. The company said it was doing so because it saw “huge opportunities for the future of Web3.” Its most recent earnings report reveals that Coinbase added 1,218 employees in the first quarter of 2022 alone, bringing its total headcount to 4,948.
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“While we did not make this decision lightly, it is prudent, given market conditions,” Brock said in the letter.
As Coinbase says, the hiring freeze is directly related to the conditions prevailing in the cryptocurrency. Other companies in the blockchain industry have made staff cuts for the same reasons. Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the twins behind the cryptocurrency exchange platform Gemini, announced that they are laying off staff. The same is true for Rain, a large crypto exchange based in the Middle East.
Source: www.theverge.com
