- 🔴Talent Acquisition / Internal Recruiters (95%) ─ Reason: Internal hiring halt makes function redundant.
- 🔴People Operations Specialists (Recruitment Support) (80%) ─ Reason: Reduced hiring volume lessens support tasks.
- 🟡Onboarding Specialists / L&D (New Hire Focus) (70%) ─ Reason: Fewer new hires decrease onboarding demand.
Layoffs & Culture at Indeed
THE NUMBERS
THE SCALE
HISTORY
- 🔴Recruiting & Talent Acquisition (90%) ─ Reason: No jobs to fill, talent acquisition redundant.
- 🔴Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) (80%) ─ Reason: Fewer companies hiring, less new ad spend.
- 🟡Marketing (Employer Solutions) (70%) ─ Reason: Less need to market to non-hiring clients.
- 🔴Talent Acquisition Specialists (95%) ─ Reason: Hiring stops, function becomes obsolete.
- 🔴External Job Candidates (90%) ─ Reason: Future roles vanished, ghosted candidates.
- 🔴Projected Growth Positions (85%) ─ Reason: Non-core innovation halted, budget reallocated.
- 🔴Recruiting & Talent Acquisition (90%) ─ Reason: Hiring freeze makes internal recruiters obsolete.
- 🔴Sales & Account Management (80%) ─ Reason: Employer demand drops, sales targets vanish.
- 🟡Marketing (Growth & Performance) (75%) ─ Reason: Slowing market, inefficient growth spending.
THE ANALYSIS
Indeed's workforce strategy from late 2022 through 2026 demonstrates a clear and sustained pivot towards contraction and stringent resource management. This strategic shift commenced with significant workforce reductions in November 2022, involving 1300 layoffs across Indeed and Glassdoor within the HR Technology segment. Following these initial cuts, the company implemented a prolonged period of recruitment restriction, transitioning from an unofficial hiring freeze to an official announcement in October 2023. This strategic pause in talent acquisition has proven durable, extending through mid-2025, as evidenced by the continued US tech hiring freeze. The outlook for 2026 indicates a persistent cautious approach, with minimal hiring growth anticipated and the recruitment pause largely maintained. This sustained retrenchment underscores a strategic emphasis on optimizing existing operational capacity and managing workforce expenditure in response to evolving market dynamics.
Indeed has eliminated a total of 1,300 positions across 4 workforce events.













