Laid off from Etsy.

What Etsy layoffs have meant for employees

Etsy's written explanations of its cuts have changed with its circumstances. Weeks after Josh Silverman became chief executive in 2017, Etsy's June 2017 release said the June cuts followed from refocusing on its vital few initiatives. The December 2023 memo used the same Vital Few label for the projects it said would reignite growth for sellers, and it pointed to gross merchandise sales that had stayed essentially flat since 2021 while employee expenses grew. The August 2026 memo said Etsy started with no cost reduction target and called the savings a consequence of the changes rather than the objective, and it said the progress Etsy had made let it act from a position of strength.

The memos also described how people were picked. In 2023 Etsy said it mapped every team against its growth priorities and reviewed each team member, starting from the most senior levels, for how well their roles and skills matched the company's needs, and its December 2023 8-K announced the departures of its chief marketing officer and chief human resources officer in connection with the same plan. The 2026 memo said leaders first designed the teams Etsy would need, then considered how each person's skills, experience and performance fit those roles, and it put most of the changes in Product & Engineering. Etsy's third-quarter 10-Q separately reported $22.6 million of the plan's $33.9 million under product development, a line in the accounts that records cost, not who held the jobs. In both rounds the structure came first and the people were matched to it, and in 2026 performance was named as one of the measures. If you're explaining an Etsy layoff to a recruiter, you can describe that process in the company's terms, and there's more on those conversations at explaining a layoff.

The 2026 package included more than severance pay. If you held stock awards that were due to vest soon after the cut, the memo described a cash payment in recognition of that near-term vesting, and the same payment recognized 2026 incentive pay. If you're relying on the healthcare support, which the memo set at up to a year, its end date is worth knowing early, and COBRA's rules are at how COBRA works. The 2023 package had also carried three months of career services through an outside partner, and departing staff could keep their laptops. If your immigration status is tied to your Etsy job, each memo listed immigration support, and the 2023 memo described it as an HR immigration specialist working directly with the people affected.

If you worked at Reverb or Depop, the company-wide counts in Etsy's filings were for a separate group. The December 2023 8-K and the 2026 10-Q described both cuts as shares of the Etsy marketplace workforce, and the 2024 annual report listed Reverb's reductions separately, as cuts Reverb made itself. Etsy's 2025 annual report said Etsy and Depop ran independently, each with engineering and product teams, and that Etsy sold Reverb on June 2, 2025. Etsy completed Depop's sale to eBay on July 30, 2026, according to a July 2026 8-K, and for anything at Depop after that date there's more on eBay's layoffs.

That same 2025 annual report said Etsy's headquarters office was in Brooklyn and that the company used the space for its principal administration, technology and development, and engineering work. If you worked out of the Brooklyn office, New York's claim rules are at New York unemployment benefits; for anywhere else, the rules are at unemployment benefits by state. If you've been offered an Etsy separation agreement, you can compare its weeks of pay with the starting severance in the 2023 and 2026 memos, and there's more on negotiating severance.