eBay Cut 15% in 8 Months. Recruit the 10,500 Who Stayed, Not the 1,000

eBay has now cut about 15% of its staff in eight months, and most recruiters will spend this week fighting over the roughly 1,000 people it just let go. That is the smaller, more crowded pool. The bigger opportunity is the roughly 10,500 people who made it through both rounds, especially the tenured core-marketplace and payments engineers who just watched their company cut people twice in one year while the stock went up.

What did eBay announce in October 2026?

In an October 2026 memo, eBay CEO Jamie Iannone told staff the company will cut about 9% of its workforce, which works out to roughly 1,000 to 1,100 jobs. It is eBay's second round this year, after 800 cuts in February.

The details that matter for timing:

• Size: An eBay spokesperson said about 1,000 positions. Reuters calculated 1,100, based on the 12,300 headcount eBay reported at the end of 2025.
• Notification: Affected employees will be told "over the next several days."
• Where the money is going: luxury, collectibles and refurbished goods, plus Depop, which eBay folded in on July 30 at a cost of $1.4 billion.
• Earnings: Q3 results land October 28.
• What's still unknown: eBay has not said which departments or locations take the biggest hit this time.

Iannone's framing was upbeat. "Our strategy is working," he wrote, adding that capturing the opportunity ahead "requires us to make thoughtful choices about where we focus and invest." That reads as a growth reallocation, not a crisis. It also tells you which teams are safe and which are not.

The October cut fits a pattern. eBay cut about 500 jobs in 2023, roughly 1,000 in 2024, 800 in February 2026, and now about 1,000 more. Anyone who has been at eBay for four years has lived through four rounds.

Why are the survivors a better target than the people laid off?

The people who stayed are a bigger pool, they get far less attention from other recruiters, and research shows survivors quit in large numbers within six months of a company-wide layoff. The people who were cut are fewer, and every recruiter on LinkedIn is messaging them this week.

The number to know comes from a University of British Columbia study published in the Academy of Management Journal. After a company-wide layoff, 2.2 staff chose to quit within a year for every person laid off, and most of them left in the first six months. After a single firing, the figure was 0.17.

2.2

Bloomberg Businessweek puts it another way: a 10% downsizing leads to a nearly 50% increase in the voluntary turnover rate. eBay has done about 15% in eight months.

The reasons aren't hard to see. The work of the people who left lands on the people who stayed. A second round eight months after the first tells everyone the first wasn't the last. And when money is flowing to luxury, collectibles and Depop, an engineer on core marketplace infrastructure can see their promotion path narrowing.

Run the arithmetic. Even if survivor attrition at eBay comes in at half the UBC ratio, that is still roughly as many voluntary departures as the entire October layoff list, and you reach them before they post an "open to work" banner.

What does Refolk's index show about where eBay engineers are?

In Refolk's index of professional profiles, 570 US profiles have a headline matching "eBay software engineer," but only 28% of a sampled set still work at eBay. In India the picture flips: 77 profiles match, and 76% of the sample are still there.

One caveat before reading too much into it. These counts match headline keywords, so they are a signal, not a census. Most eBay employees never put the company name in their headline. The value is in the ratios.

The US pool is mostly alumni, and that's useful

In the US sample, the former eBay engineers now work at Microsoft (4), Meta (3), Google (2), Intuit (2), plus Rippling, LinkedIn and Apple. Most are in the Bay Area, Seattle and Austin.

That gives you a warm way in. Former eBay engineers still know the people who stayed, and they're the most credible people to tell a current eBay engineer that life outside is fine. Before you cold-message a staff engineer still in San Jose, find out which of their former teammates now works at your company or a portfolio company.

72%

India is where the roles went

In India, 19 of 25 sampled profiles still list eBay or "eBay Bengaluru," and 14 of the 25 are in Bengaluru. That fits February's reported move of roles overseas. If you hire in Bengaluru, eBay's India team is a large, still-employed pool.

For US hiring, the conclusion is different. The core-marketplace engineers still in California after two rounds are fewer and more experienced. Those are the people you want.

Which eBay teams should you target, and which should you skip?

Go after engineers in core marketplace and payments platform. Leave the teams building luxury, collectibles, refurbished and Depop for later, because those are the teams getting the new money.

February's WARN data shows where the pain landed last time. eBay's California WARN letter listed 271 roles across San Jose and San Francisco, about 34% of the total layoff, and software engineers, developers and payments/finance roles were hit hardest. Value Added Resource got those records through public-records requests. Strauss Borrelli PLLC ran a WARN investigation, which is now closed.

That points to the teams to target:

• Core marketplace (listings, checkout, seller tools): No new investment, and the engineers left after two rounds are fewer and more experienced. These are your highest-intent targets.
• Payments platform: Hit hard in February. Treat it as a product-and-platform pool (more on that below).
• Luxury, collectibles, refurbished, Depop: They just got funding and a mandate, so they're the hardest to pull away while that money is fresh. Come back to them later.
• People moved from 300 Mission St.: In April, eBay said it would close its San Francisco office and move 198 employees to San Jose. For many of them, a longer commute on top of two layoffs is a real reason to listen.

Payments is a product pool, not just backend

The 212 US profiles in Refolk's index matching "eBay payments" don't look like backend coders. The sample is heavy with senior product and platform titles like "Senior Technical Product Manager II - Payments Platform" and "Senior Product Manager 2, Buyer Payment Experience." Alumni have gone to PayPal and Visa.

If you're a fintech recruiter, that changes the search. Look for payments product leaders and platform PMs as well as engineers, and check PayPal and Visa for the ones who have already left.

How do you find eBay survivors who don't advertise it?

Search by system and skill, not by "eBay" in the headline, then confirm current employment and tenure. Survivors aren't open to work, so a keyword search for laid-off talent won't find them.

A workable sourcing sequence:

1. Start with alumni. Pull former eBay engineers now at your company, your investors' portfolio companies, and your network. They're your referral path into the current team.
2. Search by system, then check the company. Look for engineers who mention listing infrastructure, checkout or payments orchestration, and filter to current eBay employees in San Jose and the Bay Area.
3. Filter for tenure. Four or more years at eBay means they lived through the 2023, 2024 and both 2026 rounds. That is the group with the most layoff fatigue and the most system knowledge.
4. Check GitHub and the open web. When the headline doesn't say eBay, public work can confirm the employer and the system they own.
5. Make a separate Bengaluru list if you hire in India, where the still-employed share is highest.

Steps 2 through 4 are where headline-keyword searches break down, because they only find the minority who write "eBay" in their headline. Refolk is built for this: you describe the person in plain English, and it searches GitHub, LinkedIn and the open web together and returns a ranked shortlist.

How should you pitch an eBay survivor while the stock is up 40%?

Lead with scope and stability, and be ready to buy out unvested equity. With eBay shares up nearly 40% this year against the S&P 500's roughly 12%, the stock they'd leave behind is worth more than it was in January.

Most layoff-recruiting playbooks ignore this. A survivor at a struggling company has little to lose. A survivor at a company whose stock is beating the market has a lot to lose. Check how eBay's vesting schedule works for your specific candidate before you put numbers in front of them. Don't guess.

What tends to work better than a bigger base salary:

• Scope they can't get at eBay anymore. "You'd own checkout end to end" beats "competitive comp" for an engineer who just watched investment move to luxury and Depop.
• A sign-on that covers the next vest. Name the vest date you're covering, so they don't have to weigh it themselves.
• Honesty about your own layoff history. Anyone with four years at eBay has been through four rounds. They'll ask.
• Credibility from people they know. A former eBay teammate now on your team does more than any InMail.

A survivor at a company whose stock is beating the market has a lot to lose. Pitch scope first, equity second.

There's another source of uncertainty you can mention carefully. GameStop's Ryan Cohen made an unsolicited $56 billion bid for eBay in May, and it was rejected. Two layoffs and an unsolicited-bid headline in one year leave employees wondering who will run the company in 2027. Don't push on it. Just ask how they're thinking about the next two years.

Should you still recruit the roughly 1,000 laid off?

Yes, but expect competition and keep your effort in proportion. The people cut in October are available right now, and every agency in the Bay Area is already in their inbox.

The better non-survivor pool is February's 800. Research by Davis, Trevor and Feng found that each layoff made a person 88% more likely to later quit in order to accept an unsolicited job offer. That study measured people who were laid off, not survivors, so don't stretch it to cover the 10,500. It does mean the people eBay cut in February who have since landed new jobs are unusually likely to take a well-timed call. Many of them were California software engineers and payments staff, exactly the profile the WARN letter described.

To source engineers from layoffs well, split the effort into three pools:

What should your timeline look like?

Start alumni mapping and survivor lists this week, reach out after the October 28 earnings call, and plan on a six-month window. The UBC research found that most post-layoff quits happen within the first six months.

1. Now through October 27: Map alumni, build survivor lists by system and tenure, and contact the October laid-off group directly.
2. October 28: Listen to the earnings call. Any comments on where headcount is going (marketplace vs. luxury, collectibles and refurbished) tell you which teams will feel the squeeze next.
3. First week of November: Begin warm outreach to survivors, ideally through alumni intros.
4. November through April: Keep in touch. Survivors often say "not now" in week one and "let's talk" in month three, once the extra workload has set in.

FAQ

How many people did eBay lay off in October 2026?

About 1,000 to 1,100, or roughly 9% of the workforce. eBay's spokesperson said about 1,000 positions, and Reuters calculated 1,100 from the 12,300 headcount eBay reported at the end of 2025. It follows 800 cuts in February 2026, for about 15% of staff in eight months.

How many eBay employees survived both 2026 layoff rounds?

About 10,400 to 10,500. That comes from subtracting February's 800 and October's 1,000 to 1,100 from the 12,300 employees eBay reported at the end of 2025. Roughly 7,200 of those 12,300 were in the US, though eBay hasn't said how the October cuts break down by country.

Which eBay teams were affected by the layoffs?

eBay hasn't named departments for the October round. February's California WARN letter listed 271 roles across San Jose and San Francisco, with software engineers, developers and payments/finance roles hit hardest. Money is now going to luxury, collectibles, refurbished and Depop, so engineers on those teams are the least likely to leave.