Polygon (MATIC) to Increase Workforce by 40% Amidst Crypto Winter

Polygon plans on ramping up its hiring by increasing its staff complement by up to 40% during an ongoing crypto winter.

Polygon (MATIC), an Ethereum (ETH) scaling and infrastructure platform, is planning to increase its workforce by 40%, or around 200 people, Bloomberg has reported. 

Headquartered in Dubai, Polygon now employs approximately 500 people working full-time around the globe. The company says it’s looking to hire employees in different capacities, part-time and full-time included.

“Overall, tech talent is difficult to hire even if it is a Web2 organization. It is difficult to hire the quality talent you want, especially as Web3 skills is something that’s still getting built,” Bloomberg quoted a global head of HR Bhumika Srivastava saying.

The platform’s announcement comes amid the industry’s overall layoffs following the market downtrend, or what many refer to as “crypto winter.”

“We always plan for the worst”

Coinbase, one of the most established and biggest crypto exchanges, laid off 18% of its employees  – around 1,100 people, in July.  

In a blog post, the company’s CEO, Brian Armstrong, said that the decision was made after multiple discussions with the management over the preceding month across all teams “to ensure we stay healthy during this economic downturn.”

He said there were a couple of reasons behind the decision. According to Armstrong, the exchange grew too much too quickly – “at the beginning of 2021, we had 1,250 employees” – but it also coined a strategy on how to manage the company during “winters” (which apparently includes hiring a lot of employees).

Armstrong also believes the global economy has entered a recession, and it “could lead to another crypto winter, and could last for an extended period,” which might, in turn, lead to a significant decline in revenue. 

“We always plan for the worst so we can operate the business through any environment.”

As it turned out, the decision might have been weighed from the team’s point of view, but it wasn’t executed well, with employees being locked out of their computers without any prior warning, and many of them “didn’t have a chance to say goodbye.” 

Other big firms that unexpectedly laid off their employees during this market downtrend are BitPanda, ByBit, Crypto.com, Huobi, Gemini, BlockFi, and others.

There is hope as Polygon pushes growth

Polygon’s hiring plans seem to indicate the company and its investors have a positive outlook on its future and ability to survive the current market conditions. This might have been prompted by a highly anticipated Ethereum network transition from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism scheduled on Sept. 13-15, which is expected to facilitate and speed up the network.

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