Real estate tech company Zillow is laying off about 300 employees, president Susan Daimler said in an email viewed by the Observer. The layoffs are affecting workers in the Premier Agent, Zillow Home Loans, ShowingTime+, and Zillow Closing departments. Advisors, who serve as a point of contact for home buyers, represent almost half of the roles that are being eliminated. The company had about 8,005 full-time employees as of last December.
“These decisions, and the very real impact they have on our teammates and colleagues, are always difficult and never taken lightly,” Daimler said in the email.
Zillow confirmed the layoffs to the Observer. “This week, we’ve made the difficult – but necessary – decision to eliminate a small number of roles and will shift those resources to key growth areas around our housing super-app,” a company spokesperson said by email, referring to the digital offering Zillow unveiled plans for in February. Zillow will continue to hire for 250 roles that are currently open in tech and product departments, per Daimler’s email.
A software engineer at the company who asked to remain anonymous to protect their job security said they started noticing more employees start to leave Zillow following the closure of the iBuying division last year, after which the company laid off about 25 percent of its workforce. They said Zillow’s struggles have made it difficult to hire new talent as well.
