A waste-removing startup based in downtown Pittsburgh has cut roughly 10% of its roughly 500-person workforce amid sustained economic conditions that have affected tech companies of all sizes for nearly a year.
In an email statement to Pittsburgh Inno, RoadRunner Recycling Inc. CEO and Founder Graham Rihn said the company took the "difficult but necessary step" to reduce its workforce on March 1. Rihn's statement came following several public posts on LinkedIn from now-former employees who said that up to 50 jobs had been terminated.
"While this decision did not come lightly, the current economic climate has led us to explore a variety of ways to streamline operations, and this reduction is, unfortunately, unavoidable as we adjust our strategies to continue providing world-class services to our customers," Rihn said. "Our culture has always focused on caring personally for one another, and as such, we intend to fully support those impacted by providing severance packages, including medical continuation, and outplacement services as they navigate this transition."
Rihn did not specify where the company geographically made the cuts nor did he disclose the types of roles affected. Most of RoadRunner's employees work out of the Pittsburgh region, though the company also has over a dozen smaller locations it serves across the country.
The layoffs at RoadRunner are the latest of several high-profile workforce reduction efforts made at other Pittsburgh-based tech firms in recent weeks.
Last month, Locomation Inc., based in Lawrenceville, announced it cut about 70% of its workforce. It followed the January 20 announcement that IAM Robotics, a warehousing fulfillment service startup, also issued an unspecified number of layoffs. A few months before these layoffs, robotics firm Seegrid Corp announced it cut 90 jobs companywide in August 2022.
But for some local tech companies, layoffs weren't enough to continue in the current economic climate, which has led some of these companies down the path of closure.
Argo AI, an autonomous vehicle startup based in the Strip District, shut down in October, resulting in the elimination of over 700 jobs locally, though Ford Motor Co. announced last week that it would erect Latitute AI in Argo's place as a subsidiary company that is based in Pittsburgh, onboarding about 550 former Argo employees in the process (Ford was one of Argo's major investors but announced it'd no longer fund the company last fall, leading to Argo's demise). Fifth Season, a robotics-based vertical farming startup, also shut down in October and laid off about 100 workers, though efforts are reportedly underway to potentially revive the company.
