Business

“We need to set ourselves up to weather this storm.”

Cambridge-based software company HubSpot is cutting 7 percent of its workforce as part of a series of changes due to slowing business. 

“We came into 2022 anticipating growth would slow down from 2021, but we experienced a faster deceleration than we expected,” chief executive Yamini Rangan said in an email to employees obtained by The Boston Globe. “Unfortunately, the level of uncertainty in customer demand now tells us that we may have more challenging times ahead. We need to set ourselves up to weather this storm.”

Rangan wrote that the company over-hired to deal with a surge in business at the start of the pandemic, growing to over 7,400 employees. About 500 of those “HubSpotters” were laid off Tuesday. 

Impacted workers will receive severance pay, extended medical benefits, and equity vesting, according to Rangan’s email. They are also permitted to keep work-from-home gear, including company laptops.

Hubspot also plans to close its Cambridge headquarters at 25 First St. Remaining employees will be consolidated into the company’s other Cambridge location at 2 Canal St.

The workforce reduction is expected to be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2023, while the lease consolidation will take place later this year, according to the Boston Business Journal.

HubSpot founder Dharmesh Shah tweeted a personal thanks to those impacted by the layoffs Tuesday afternoon.

“It has been 16 years since HubSpot was founded, and we are making the necessary changes to (hopefully) have 16 more of Solving For The Customer,” he wrote.