LivingSocial has cut a fifth of its workforce in a restructuring under new CEO Gautam Thakar. The company laid off almost 400 employees, according to a report from Valleywag, and will close its Southern California office as part of the restructuring.
In an email to LivingSocial employees, Thakar said that the move was made in an attempt to increase the firm’s focus on particular areas of its business.
The company has gone through some hard times lately, following a massive data breach and significant downtime last year. Thakar took over for company co-founder Tim O’Shaughnessy in June, and is trying to revitalize the site by moving away from daily deals and towards continuously-running discount offers. It’s unclear yet whether the move will be enough to bring LivingSocial back to profitability.
As a part of that attempt, Thakar told Re/code that the company is in talks with Amazon, which owns roughly a third of LivingSocial’s shares, to change the way the two companies work together. LivingSocial deals used to make up a much larger percentage of offers available through Amazon Local, though Amazon’s in-house sales team has since ramped up the number of in-house deals the company features.
Last year, the Washington, D.C.-based company laid off staff and closed its Seattle office.
