Satellite office campuses across the United State are feeling the Covid-19 crunch, as the start-ups that generally occupy them resort to layoffs to survive the coming recession. An article in Techcrunch.com documents numerous examples of mass firings are hitting secondary office markets where start-ups often open secondary office locations to save on costs. San Francisco-based EasyPost laid off 75 employees from its Salt Lake City and Louisvill offices, while U.K.-based Challenger bank Mozno gave 165 of its customer support staff in Las Vegas the sack. A Boston operation called Toast fired 1,300 employees (half of its staff) of which 12 percent were from its Omaha office. KeepTruckin, another San Francisco outfit, said goodbye to 350 employees. One-third of them were culled from the company’s offices in Nashville and Chicago.
But Techcrunch notes that not all companies will look to satellite office staff when looking for sacrifices. Michael Skok, a partner at the company Underscore, told the website that āin some cases, weāve seen that satellite offices are established in emerging markets which come with cost savings, so these offices may actually be more protected in these times.ā In other words, firing someone who has to pay San Francisco housing rents may make more sense than firing someone whose living expenses are 50 percent cheaper.
