Zoom Lays Off 150 Employees, Okta Slashes 400 Jobs

 Video communication platform Zoom is laying off nearly 150 employees, or less than 2 per cent of the company's workforce.

Zoom said the layoffs are not company-wide and it will continue to hire for roles in artificial intelligence, sales, product and across operations in 2024.

"We regularly evaluate our teams to ensure alignment with our strategy," a Zoom spokesperson told CNBC in a statement.

"As part of this effort, we are rescoping roles to add capabilities and continue to hire in critical areas for the future," the spokesperson added. Last February, Zoom slashed around 1,300 jobs, or about 15 per cent of its workforce.

In addition to Zoom, cloud software vendor Okta also announced to lay off about 400 employees, or about 7 per cent of its workforce. Okta CEO Todd McKinnon said that the "reality is that costs are still too high". Okta shares rose around 3.6 per cent in premarket trading on the news, according to reports.

McKinnon said the firm needed to be more "thoughtful" about where it was investing to achieve "long-term success." "In order to grow profitably, we need to run the business with greater efficiency. While we've taken steps in the right direction, the reality is that costs are still too high.

We need to be mindful of our overall spend so we can continue to invest in the areas, products, and routes to market with the most opportunity," said the CEO