Match Group to Cut 13 Percent of Staff After Another Quarterly Decline

Dating app giant Match Group is set to cut 13 percent of its staff, a reduction of about 325 employees from its most current count of 2,500. The company will also be closing all open positions.

This news comes after another disappointing first quarter. The company said in an earnings call that paid users fell more than 5 percent from a year ago, a trend that continues as more young daters look for ways to meet outside of dating apps. According to Fortune, the company’s new CEO Spencer Rascoff said that the staffing cuts will save Match Group about $100 million per year, and about $45 million in 2025 alone.

The trimming of staff will mostly focus on management according to Tech Crunch, with about one in five managers affected. The company wants to centralize key functions like technology and data services, customer care, and content moderation. It also wants to focus on media buying and international go-to-market functions to increase customer reach.

Match Group is the parent company of such brands as Tinder, Hinge and OkCupid. Tinder has seen the biggest drop in paying users, with subscriptions declining 7 percent, according to Tech Crunch. Hinge continues to buck the trend, however, seeing a 23 percent spike in paying users over the last year.

Fortune points out that tariffs won’t directly impact the dating app market, since they don’t deal in imported goods. However, when users start to feel the impact of soaring prices and a downturn in the economy, they will likely want to cut back on unnecessary expenses, and paying for a dating app will likely be on the chopping block since there are other ways to meet people. Analysts have warned about this, with Bank of America noting: “the online dating industry faces continued headwinds to user growth,” according to Fortune.

Rascoff, who took over from former CEO Bernard Kim earlier this year, has said the company is “not ruling out” price cuts and other types of promotions to attract users. He posted a letter on LinkedIn, asking Match Group employees to offer suggestions on how to improve dating apps, because he wrote that the platforms don’t offer a good way “to build real connections.”

Rascoff also said in a statement about the cuts are intended to help Match Group operate as one company instead of a series of brands that are managed independently, as they have been. There is no news on whether some brands will be folded in to Match’s more popular platforms, or how the company plans to organize their suite of apps going forward.