Online used-vehicle retailer Vroom Inc. said this week it reduced its headcount by approximately 120 employees, or about 11 percent of its Vroom-specific work force.
The reduction is included as part of an “organizational restructuring” that Vroom has implemented amid a reexamination of “all facets of the business,” the company said in a Wednesday regulatory filing. Vroom employed 1,323 employees as of Dec. 31, 2022, according to its latest annual report. However, that total declined in January when the retailer reduced its headcount by approximately 275 employees.
Vroom has tied the employee reductions to its pursuit of executing a long-term, cost-cutting-focused business plan it shifted to last year.
“The decision to reduce staff this week, while difficult, is consistent with our commitment to our long-term roadmap and objectives for the year to prioritize unit economics and growth, improve our customer experience, reduce cost per unit and maximize liquidity,” the company said in a statement.
In March, Vroom CEO Tom Shortt told Automotive News the company would take “all available measures” to improve its vehicle economics and costs per vehicle.
“We’re focused on finding ways to do more with less, and as we see opportunities to reduce costs we’re going to continue to reduce costs,” Shortt said.
Vroom has reduced its employees and contractors by about 55 percent since January 2022, the company said in the Wednesday filing. That is excluding employees of the retailer’s captive finance arm, United Auto Credit Corp., which it finalized acquiring in February 2022.
Vroom expects to incur cash charges of about $2 million from the latest work force reduction — mostly made up of severance — and expects annualized cash savings from the two most recent reductions to be about $42 million, according to the filing.