By Connor Hart and Chip Cutter

Bumble will lay off about 30% of its employees, or roughly 240 workers, as it aims to realign its operating structure, helping it to focus on its strategic priorities.

"The reality is, we need to take decisive action to restructure to build a company that's resilient, intentional, and ready for the next decade," Chief Executive Whitney Wolfe Herd said in a letter sent to employees Wednesday disclosing the layoffs.

Wolfe returned to the online dating company in March.

"We've reset our strategy, and are going back to a startup mentality -- rooted in an ownership mindset and team structures designed for faster, more meaningful execution," she added.

The disclosure came as Bumble raised its second-quarter outlook.

Shares recently jumped 19% to $6.22. Through Tuesday's close, the stock had lost nearly half of its value in the past year.

Bumble expects to achieve up to $40 million in annual cost savings in connection with the workforce reduction, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

It also anticipates incurring between $13 million and $18 million of nonrecurring charges tied to the layoffs, consisting primarily of employee severance benefits and related charges. These will be incurred largely in the third and fourth quarters of 2025, the company said.

Bumble now expects revenue of $244 million to $249 million for the quarter ending June 30, up from a prior outlook of $235 million to $243 million. The company also raised its adjusted Ebitda -- or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization -- outlook to between $88 million and $93 million, from between $79 million and $84 million.

Analysts polled by FactSet expected second-quarter revenue of $240 million and adjusted Ebitda of $80.6 million.

Online dating apps have been struggling to grow and draw in Gen Z users, who are preferring in-person meetings instead of swiping on apps. That has led dating-app providers to focus on trimming their expenses and restructuring teams in an effort to speed up innovation.

In May, Match Group, which owns Tinder, said it would cut 13% of its workers, or about 325 people, as the online-dating-app company continues to struggle and experience weak demand from younger users. The planned job cuts will reduce management layers, including around one in five managers overall, the company had said.

The cuts at Match came on the heels of Chief Executive Spencer Rascoff stepping into the leadership role earlier in 2025. He is also taking over the top job at Tinder, the company's biggest app.

Rascoff, 49, laid out his vision for Tinder in an internal memo last month. He called on staff to speed up new product changes, leverage artificial intelligence and bake in features that boost user safety. Employees should focus on improving people's experiences on the app, even at the expense of short-term revenue, he said.

"Users don't want more matches, they want better ones," Rascoff wrote in the memo viewed by The Wall Street Journal. Tinder's team is also creating low-pressure ways for people to meet on the app, aimed at wooing Gen Z. One feature, for instance, allows users to more easily arrange double dates with their friends.

Smaller teams within the company will help it to more easily launch new features, Rascoff said in an interview with the Journal last month.

"The employees have more autonomy because they can have more impact," he said. "So it's not about giving one person the job of three, it's about positioning them properly so they can have a bigger impact and then expecting them to be accountable."

Write to Connor Hart at Connor.Hart@wsj.com and Chip Cutter at chip.cutter@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 25, 2025 11:34 ET (15:34 GMT)

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