--- title: LivingSocial Is Half Off -- in a Very Bad Way description: Living Social is getting rid of more than half its staff and will only employ 200 people. authors: - name: Martha C. White role: Writer url: https://money.com/author/martha-c-white/ education: BA, English, Princeton University at_money_since: 2015 articles: 350 covers: - Business - Banking - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Debt - Economy and Politics - Education - Federal Reserve Rate Cuts - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology published: '2016-03-16T19:19:31.000Z' modified: '2016-03-16T19:19:31.000Z' section: Business tags: - ecommerce - Layoffs - LivingSocial - online shopping - pubdesk word_count: 256 canonical: https://money.com/livingsocial-layoffs/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Around 600, mostly young employees in their 20s, fill the office spaces at several Washington D.C. locations of livingsocial, a young company that planted its headquarters in the nation's capital, July 27, 2011.](https://img.money.com/2016/03/160316_em_livingsocial1.jpg?crop=0px%2C213px%2C2100px%2C1182px&quality=85) *Around 600, mostly young employees in their 20s, fill the office spaces at several Washington D.C. locations of livingsocial, a young company that planted its headquarters in the nation's capital, July 27, 2011.* LivingSocial is half off — its staff numbers, that is. The Groupon rival and one-time unicorn valued at $4.5 billion is laying off more than half of its workforce, [Re/Code](http://recode.net/2016/03/16/livingsocial-is-laying-off-more-than-50-percent-of-its-staff/) reports. About 280 employees will get pink slips, and LivingSocial will only have roughly 200 employees left afterwards as it tries to launch a new restaurant rebate venture in the face of waning interest in daily deals. This most recent announcement follows layoffs of around [200 people](http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/15/technology/livingsocial-cuts-staff/) or 20% of its workforce that took place last fall. In total, LivingSocial has eliminated about 900 workers over the past year and a half. Like an expired voucher for half-price Thai food, the daily deals business isn't the hot new thing it once was: “The fact of the matter is that vouchers are yesterday’s news,” LivingSocial board member Tige Savage told the *[New York Times](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/technology/livingsocial-once-a-unicorn-is-losing-its-magic.html)* a few months ago. Amazon [threw in the towel](http://fox40.com/2015/11/02/amazon-shutting-down-its-local-daily-deals-site/) on its local deals platform, Amazon Local, in December. LivingSocial's revenue has fallen from $347 million in 2012 to $231 million in 2014, when it also posted a net loss of $100 million. What's more, the company hasn't raised any new funding since 2013, according to [TechCrunch](http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/16/deals-site-livingsocial-lays-off-another-160-over-50-of-staff-outsources-customer-service/). LivingSocial is still operating its daily deals business, and *[Silicon Valley Business Journal](http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/blog/techflash/2016/03/valley-backed-livingsocial-cuts-half-its-workforce.html)* said the company hopes that this latest round of layoffs will help it break even in these operations. But these days, the company is pinning its hopes for success on a new restaurant rebate program that gives diners discounts for paying with certain cards. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/livingsocial-layoffs/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Business", "item": "https://money.com/business/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Startups", "item": "https://money.com/startups/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "LivingSocial Is Half Off -- in a Very Bad Way" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/livingsocial-layoffs/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/livingsocial-layoffs/", "name": "LivingSocial Is Half Off -- in a Very Bad Way", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2016-03-16T19:19:31.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/livingsocial-layoffs/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/livingsocial-layoffs/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2016-03-16T19:19:31.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "LivingSocial Is Half Off -- in a Very Bad Way", "articleSection": "Business", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2016/03/160316_em_livingsocial1.jpg?crop=0px%2C213px%2C2100px%2C1182px&quality=85", "width": 1012, "height": 569, "caption": "160316_EM_LivingSocial" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Martha C. 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