Groupon is cutting about 10% of its workforce

Remember a few years ago when Groupon turned down a $6 billion acquisition deal from Google? Yeah, I can pretty much guarantee the company is regretting that decision. To be fair, the company was growing at a ridiculous pace back then and staying independent actually seemed like a good move, but Groupon’s early success has long-since waned, and the company has spent the last two years restructuring in an effort to get it together. The process of restructuring is now seeing more than 1,000 jobs, which is about 10% of Groupon’s workforce, being cut, and the company is shutting down its operations in seven countries. 

On Tuesday, the online coupon company Groupon announced that it would be cutting over 1,000 jobs—a little less than a tenth of its workforce. Rich Williams, Groupon’s COO, said in a statement that the layoffs would be primarily be in the company’s “Deal Factory” and customer-service departments. He also noted in his post that Groupon’s returns aren’t doing so well in a number of countries, and that Groupon will be exiting Greece, Turkey, Morocco, Panama, The Philippines, Puerto Rico, Taiwan, Thailand and Uruguay. Groupon will still be operation in over 30 countries. The daily-deal revolution that Groupon started seems to be winding down. Groupon began in 2008 in Chicago, and it is one of the original Internet “unicorns”—a startup that has received a valuation of $1 billion or more. The company grew an online-coupon juggernaut extremely quickly: By 2010, the company reported $500 million in revenue. That same year, Groupon brushed off a $6 billion buyout offer from Google and in 2011 it was valued at nearly $13 billion.