BETTER FIRES 3 000 MORE EMPLOYEES

The online home loan company is in the news again after its CEO fired 900 employees just before Christmas.

Last year, a video featuring Better’s CEO, Vishal Garg, made the rounds on social media. The video showed the moment he fired the employees just before Christmas while on a Zoom meeting.

Now, the struggling company has announced on its website that its Interim President Kevin Ryan will have the horrible task of having to fire another 3 000 employees due to a “dramatic drop in origination volume due to rising interest rates”.

The drop seems to be because of the company’s rapid expansion during the pandemic when interest rates were low. With the interest rates rising fast, the home loan company is showing the effect.

Better said on its website that affected employees will be notified personally over the phone. It seems as if the company learned a big lesson from last year’s mass online firing meeting, a public relations disaster.

The statement released by the company on its own website said that the 3 000 employees who are about to be fired will be eligible for extended medical benefits, severance and a “suite of services” to help them find a new job.

Bloomberg reports that Better.com was once valued as high as $6.9 billion. The company ranked No. 1 on LinkedIn’s Top Startups list in 2020 and 2021. The Softbank-backed mortgage lender has been trying to go public, although those plans have been postponed due to the fallout from Garg’s handling of the December layoffs.

Image credit: CNN