Circle to increase staff by 25% months after aborting plans to go public

• Circle’s move comes at a time when many firms in the industry are laying off workers.
• 41% of company layoffs in 2023 have so far come from the crypto industry.
• It also comes months after Circle aborted plans to go public.

USDC issuer Circle is planning to increase its staff by 15% to 25% just months after it aborted plans to go public in December 2022.

Circle had planned to become a public company through a merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Concord Acquisition before the two firms mutually called off the plan. Circle’s chief financial officer Jeremy Fox-Geen, however, said that the firm still plans to go public once the market conditions are better.

Circle is increasing its workforce at a time when a good number of crypto firms have announced staff layoffs.

2023 crypto layoffs

Polygon Labs is the latest cryptocurrency firm to announce layoffs.

In a period of almost two months, about nine crypto firms including crypto exchanges have announced layoffs. Some of the companies that have announced layoffs include Coinbase, Huobi, Chainalysis, Gemini, Wyre, Crypto.com, Bittrex, and Genesis.

While the crypto industry is not the only one suffering from staff layoff, it accounts for about 41% of all layoffs in 2023 so far.

Other non-crypto firms that have announced layoffs this year include Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Amazon. The four companies have laid off about 48,000 people in 2023.

Circle, therefore, seems to be going against the tide.