Bumble has lost a third of its Texas workforce in the months since the state passed controversial abortion bill SB 8 (Senate Bill 8), also known as the Texas Pulse Lawover a year ago. This new data point was shared by Bumble’s interim general counsel, Elizabeth Monteleone, speaking on a panel this afternoon at the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas. The panel focused on the “health care crisis in post-Roe America” and featured women who had sued and spoken out about the need to involve doctors, not politicians, in their health care decisions.
In addition, Monteleone noted that Bumble no longer requires employees to join the business at its Austin location, even though the dating app maker is headquartered there.
“We are a remote company. We supported employees who chose to move out of state,” Monteleone added.
“We — since SB 8 — have seen our workforce in Texas shrink by about a third. These workers are choosing to move elsewhere,” he told the audience at the event. “There are a variety of laws in Texas that I think a lot of people find inconsistent with living a healthy life and being their authentic self,” Monteleone added, suggesting that not all walkouts are directly tied to this particular bill, but likely to several other Texas laws or proposed laws that do not sit well with Bumble employees.
The dating app maker has become the first business to join an amicus brief in support of a lawsuit challenging Texas’ abortion law. Zurawski v. State of Texasfiled by Center for Reproductive Rights. The lawsuit claims the law puts pregnant women’s lives at risk because doctors are afraid to provide abortion care for fear of losing their licenses, facing heavy fines or even prison terms. The women involved in the case are suing the state they are forced to carry out their pregnancy because of the state’s abortion law, despite the risks to their health. Some women had to travel out of state to receive health care, increasing their health risks. Others sued because they had to terminate non-viable pregnancies. Several Texas doctors also signed the lawsuit, saying they could no longer properly practice medicine.
While the SXSW panel focused heavily on the political aspects of this and other laws, including those that now seek to limit access to IVF, as well as their personal and emotional toll on women, Bumble’s attorney additionally pointed to the business impact of these laws. I have.
“We know that abortion has an impact on individuals, but there is a profound negative impact on society as a whole and especially on business,” Monteleone said. “We looked into the lens and what we’re presenting in the brief was the increased cost for us to attract and retain talent in Texas, the increased cost for us to provide health care benefits to our employees…We found that because of our position, having been established with women at the forefront, from the beginning, and having that voice and that legitimacy, to begin with, we could combine that with that very business case and help support the case,” she said.
Since signing Bumble, businesses from all over Texas have also signed the amicus brief, including rivals Match Group and SXSW, some say they fear they will face similar challenges attracting and retaining talent.
“These are his estimates [prospective employees] when they think about whether to take a job, whether to stay in a job. That thought about location is a very real factor,” Monteleone noted.
Since the law’s passage, Bumble has introduced improved health care benefits that include cost coverage for people “seeking the full range of reproductive rights,” she said, including abortion, IVF, surrogacy, egg freezing and of gender-affirming care. Other companies have offered similar benefits, at their own expense.
These issues are even more pressing for a company like Bumble, which is currently struggling to grow and appeal to a younger audience that seems less interested in dating apps than their older counterparts. The dating app maker had a weak quarter, with a net loss of $32 million on revenue of $273.6 million. It also announced it would shed 350 employees following other organizational changes that saw founder Whitney Wolfe Herd step down as CEO and a C-suite shakeup that included appointing former Slack CEO Lidiane Jones as the new CEO her advisor.
