eBay's Revenue Grew 15%. It Is Cutting 9% of Its Workforce—Again.

A CEO says the strategy works, then cuts about 1,000 jobs

On October 21, 2026, Reuters reported eBay CEO Jamie Iannone had told staff the company would reduce its workforce by around 9%, simplifying operations and shifting resources toward faster-growing priorities. An eBay spokesperson confirmed the plan affects about 1,000 jobs.

The CEO argued that the company's strategy was working while insisting it needed to decide more carefully where to invest. This was not presented as a withdrawal from every growth initiative, but as a reallocation of capacity.

Those are announced plans, not proof that all affected employees have already left. The specific departments and functions targeted were not reported. It would be unwarranted to claim the cuts were driven by AI replacing workers or by the Depop acquisition.

Revenue and merchandise volume each rose 15% in the preceding quarter

eBay's August 5 release reported Q2 2026 revenue of $3.134 billion and gross merchandise volume of $22.4 billion, both up 15% as reported and 14% adjusted for foreign exchange. GAAP operating margin reached 21.6%, compared with 17.6% in the prior-year quarter.

First-party advertising revenue reached $570 million, a 25% year-on-year increase. These figures describe a company whose aggregate business was growing, making a simple collapsing-sales explanation for October cuts insufficient.

One quarter is not evidence that every business line was improving. Crucially, Q2 ended June 30, and Depop did not close until July 30. The Q2 15% growth cannot be credited to the later acquisition.

The growth priorities involve more than a larger catalog

Reuters highlighted eBay's focus on authenticated luxury goods, collectibles and refurbished products. Such markets rely on trust in item identity and condition rather than simply listing an ever-larger inventory.

Serving collectors and high-value resale buyers can require category knowledge, authentication processes, dispute handling and different marketplace product experiences. These capabilities may not scale in exactly the same way as undifferentiated commerce operations.

That is Banseog's operating-model interpretation of eBay's strategy, not a disclosed map of where it added or eliminated jobs. Management has not published a function-by-function headcount breakdown for the October cuts.

The $1.4 billion Depop acquisition raises a different integration question

eBay closed its acquisition of consumer-to-consumer fashion platform Depop on July 30. The original cash price in the February agreement was about $1.2 billion subject to adjustments; eBay's Q2 SEC filing says it paid about $1.4 billion at closing including provisional adjustments.

Depop serves a younger, community-oriented resale audience. In the closing announcement, eBay said it would support Depop's growth while preserving the features that make it distinctive as a marketplace.

A company can seek efficiencies from shared services while keeping customer-facing experiences separate. However, eBay did not disclose which specific functions would be integrated, how much savings would result, or that Depop caused the October layoffs. Integration choices remain a strategic question rather than a confirmed restructuring explanation.

In January 2024, eBay also planned cuts of about 9%

The January 23, 2024 internal CEO memo attached to an SEC filing proposed eliminating approximately 1,000 roles, or 9% of full-time employees. At the time, management said workforce and cost growth had outpaced business growth and teams needed to consolidate similar work and accelerate decisions.

Reuters said eBay also cut about 800 workers, around 6%, in February 2026. Then came the October plan for another roughly 9%. Similar percentages recur, but they do not reveal identical causes or identical employees.

These percentages must not be simply added to estimate the company's current headcount change: hiring, attrition, internal transfers and acquisition-related workforce changes may have occurred between announcements. The repetition alone does not prove the first restructuring failed.

Buying a growth engine is not the same decision as keeping every existing job

By acquiring Depop, eBay obtained additional customer relationships and a differentiated fashion community. It may simultaneously need to determine which existing activities support that strategy, can be adapted or no longer deserve the same resources.

A useful organizational diagnosis distinguishes work to reduce, capabilities to transfer across businesses, and capabilities not yet present. Redeployment and retraining can sometimes preserve hard-won institutional knowledge while changing where it creates value.

These are evaluation categories, not eBay's disclosed internal staffing allocations. Public information does not specify which occupations are being reduced or which specialized skills may receive new investment.

What would demonstrate that the restructuring worked?

Lower payroll is not the same as better operations. Streamlining might speed decisions, but it can also remove important experience, strain customer support or slow product release if the organization loses capabilities it still needs.

Investors and customers will need to see sustained marketplace growth, margin performance, outcomes in trusted categories and how Depop's distinctive customer experience develops. Decision speed, service quality and talent continuity would also be useful operational checks if data become available.

These are proposed evaluation metrics, not results that eBay has already attributed to October's cuts. The Q2 numbers also cannot establish the later reduction's effects.

A recurring headcount percentage is not a strategy by itself

The January 2024 plan, February 2026 reduction and October 2026 plan make organizational simplification a recurring theme. But each takes place against different markets, acquisitions and investment priorities.

The practical question is which capabilities the future business needs and where those capabilities reside today. Cutting roles is one action; deciding what to combine, retrain or protect is a much broader operating-model judgment.