Inside a HubSpot office, photographed in March 2013. Credit: RebeccaChurt / CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons (cropped) HubSpot is eliminating about 660 roles, 7% of its workforce, in a restructuring its chief executive calls an AI strategy shift while insisting it is not driven by AI efficiencies. Its SEC filing concedes the timetable depends on local consultation law, which in Ireland means a statutory 30-day minimum and criminal penalties for ignoring it. HubSpot is cutting about 660 jobs, 7% of its workforce.
The board authorised the plan on 1 October and the chief executive told staff on Tuesday. It reaffirmed its revenue guidance the same day. Yamini Rangan said HubSpot had shifted “from building software that helps customers grow to delivering outcomes for them with AI“, in a letter attached to an 8-K filing. She also said the decision “is not driven by AI-related efficiencies“.
Both are in the same memo. It expects charges of $65M to $75M, mostly severance, most of it in the fourth quarter. Second-quarter revenue rose 20% to nearly $912M. The shares are down roughly 45% this year.
One line in the filing is about Europe. The eliminations should be “substantially complete” by the end of the first quarter of 2027, HubSpot said, “subject to local law and consultation requirements“. Its risk disclosure repeats the phrase, warning the charges could land on a different timeline. That is not boilerplate.
HubSpot’s European headquarters is in Dublin, which it announced in 2012 with a promise of 150 jobs. By early 2023 it employed about 1,000 people in Ireland, more than a tenth of its workforce, according to IDA Ireland. Irish law sets a floor. For an employer with 300 or more staff, 30 redundancies proposed within 30 days is a collective redundancy, and consultation must start 30 days before the first notice.
No dismissal can take effect until 30 days after the minister is notified. Ignoring it is a criminal offence, with fines up to EUR 250,000 on indictment. TikTok’s 300 proposed cuts in Dublin this summer were expressly subject to consultation with staff and their union. HubSpot has not said where the 660 fall.
The rules are tightening. Directive 2025/2450 revises the European Works Councils regime and must be in national law by 1 January 2028, requiring consultation early enough for a thorough assessment before decisions are taken. Sanctions are calculated against turnover. In the US, AI was the stated reason for 38,579 of 97,006 job cuts announced in May, the highest since Challenger, Gray & Christmas started counting in 2023.
Morgan Stanley doubled its forecast in May, to 400,000 European banking jobs lost to AI by 2030, and assumed they would go through attrition rather than mass redundancy, because works councils make the alternative slow. HubSpot’s filing is the same assumption, written by an American company.
