Toast believed to have cut its Dublin staff by 50%

Toast, a US technology company that announced plans to create 120 jobs in Ireland last year, is cutting its workforce by 50 per cent with almost half its Dublin employees believed to have been let go.

The Boston-headquartered company, which provides point of sales software for the restaurant industry, attributed the layoffs to the Covid-19 crisis.

In a blogpost, chief executive Chris Comparato said the sector had been decimated by the crisis with restaurant sales having plummeted by 80 per cent in most cities.

“As restaurant revenues plummeted in March, we took every step we could to protect the health of our company. We froze hiring, pulled back offers, and halted merit increases. As a leadership team, we will reduce our pay across the board. But with limited visibility into how quickly the industry may recover, and facing slower than anticipated growth, we now find ourselves in the unenviable position of reducing our headcount.,” he said.

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Toast, which established a presence in the Republic in 2017 with the opening of a technology and product development centre, last year announced plans to take headcount in Dublin to 160 people.

Mr Comparato said about 50 per cent of staff would lose their jobs overall, equivalent to about 1,300 roles globally.

Toast was ranked as the third fastest growing business in the US in 2017.Its revenue grew 109 per cent last year as a result of the demand for its platform and it had been in the processing of increasing staff on the back of expected growth in 2020.

The job losses come as the company earlier this year announced a new $400 million funding round that valued the company at $4.9 billion.

The company did not respond to requests for comment.