Lower ride prices could be coming to Uber after the company's recent layoffs.
CEO Dara Khosrowshahi pointed to lower prices as one way that Uber plans to use the money it's saving from laying off 10% of its corporate workforce, or about 3,300 people. The company announced the job cuts earlier this month.
"We are going to take the savings there and essentially reinvest it back in the business, lowering prices, improving selection, and continuing to invest in our growth program," the CEO said during a presentation at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference on Thursday.
Uber is also planning to put savings from insurance costs toward lower prices — a move that should help keep riders using Uber's app, he said.
The layoffs came as Uber has largely exceeded analysts' expectations in recent quarterly earnings reports. The company's stock also rose about 2% on Thursday after it disclosed in an SEC filing that Khosrowshahi had added about $10 million in Uber stock to his holdings.
Khosrowshahi said that Uber picked the right time to make the layoffs because the company was in "a position of strength versus weakness."
"Some companies wait," he said. "We don't believe in waiting."
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Alex Bitter is a senior retail reporter covering the gig economy, food, and retail. His work focuses major gig delivery and ride-hailing apps, including Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, and Walmart's Spark. He is interested in everything from what it's like to work on the apps to the companies' business strategies.Some of his recent stories feature gig workers who have been deactivated on the apps, DoorDash hiring traditional employees to make deliveries, gig workers' use of bots, and gig work expanding into new professions, such as nursing.Alex has also written about Aldi's US expansion, Starbucks' turnaround efforts, and the fallout from Kraft-Heinz's budget cutting. Convenience store chain Sheetz ended its "smile policy" after his reporting.Before joining Insider in September 2020, he wrote about consumer and retail companies for S&P Global Market Intelligence. He's a graduate of the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa and grew up on the Big Island.Alex lives in the Washington, DC, area, where you can find him studying ancient coins or searching for Civil War artifacts with his metal detector in his free time.Got a tip? Reach out at [email protected] or via encrypted messaging app Signal at +1 (808) 854-4501.
