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eBay has ended its employee shuttle service, a common perk in Silicon Valley, amid cutbacks

An employee walks past eBay signage at the company’s headquarters in San Jose, California.David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty ImageseBay in January discontinued its shuttle service, which transported employees from around the San Francisco Bay Area to its offices.The service wasn’t being used by enough employees to justify the cost, according to a person…

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Published on February 5, 2020

An employee walks past eBay signage at the company's headquarters in San Jose, California.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

eBay in January discontinued its shuttle service, which transported employees from around the San Francisco Bay Area to its offices.

The service wasn't being used by enough employees to justify the cost, according to a person close to the company. The majority of eBay's shuttle service operated between San Francisco (the North Bay) and San Jose (the South Bay), where the company already has two offices respectively, this person said. CNBC could not immediately learn how much the service was costing the company.

The service cut follows pressure from activist investors Elliott Management and Starboard Value, including the ouster of Devin Wenig as CEO last September. In January, the company laid off more than 100 employees across its San Francisco Bay Area offices, according to a document from the State of California's Employment Development Department.

Shares of eBay surged more than 8% on Tuesday after reports that Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), which owns the New York Stock Exchange, made a bid to acquire eBay's marketplace business. ICE later put out a statement confirming that it had talked to eBay about a deal, but said “eBay has not engaged in a meaningful way.”

Silicon Valley tech companies including Facebook, Google and Apple contract shuttle services for employees who commute from various areas around San Francisco Bay Area's sprawling region. Tech workers often live far outside of San Francisco and Silicon Valley in search of lower housing prices.

eBay sales director Michael Robinson recently told Protocol that he used to take a mix of public transit and an employee bus from his home in Tracy, California 60 miles to eBay's San Jose headquarters but had to stop in January when eBay decided to cut its shuttle program.

eBay declined to offer a comment for this story.

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