WeWork Cuts About 300 Employees, Ahead of a Hiring Binge

As the co-working giant dismisses 3 percent of staff, it plans to increase headcount by more than half this year.

Pedestrians walk past the WeWork Cos. Iceberg co-working space in Tokyo, Japan, on Thursday, Dec. 20, 2018. The office-sharing giant, valued at as much as $42 billion, is getting a greater portion of its business from the large companies that property owners usually court. It's also building an investment division to buy its own sites, according to people with knowledge of the matter.Photographer: Keith Bedford/Bloomberg

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By Ellen Huet

March 1, 2019 at 11:49 PM UTC

Updated on

March 2, 2019 at 1:15 AM UTC

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Co-working giant WeWork Cos. cut about 300 employees this week, or roughly 3 percent of its workforce, in what it described as performance-related dismissals.

WeWork, which operates shared office spaces around the world, suggested the staff reductions were a small culling ahead of a hiring spree. A spokesman said the company has 10,000 employees and plans to add 6,000 this year. “Over the past nine years, WeWork has grown into one of the largest global physical networks thanks to the hard work and dedication of our team,” he wrote in an email.