Dive Brief:

• Waitr has laid off about two dozen people in its Lafayette, Louisiana, office, according to KATC.
• The layoffs, which affected office employees and not drivers, were due to overlaps following its acquisition of Bite Squad, the company told KATC.
• "We have made the difficult decision to streamline select parts of the organization through a synergistic reduction; no jobs are being outsourced. We believe this will help maximize efficiencies and is necessary to best position our organization for continued growth and future success," Waitr CEO Chris Meaux said in a statement. 

Dive Insight:

Postmates isn't the only delivery platform that's recently cut back staff in the interest of cost savings. Just Eat, which has been under pressure by investors to grow more quickly, laid off 26 employees in Dublin, moving customer care and restaurant support roles to the U.K. as a way to increase efficiencies, according to the Irish Times. Layoffs are common after an acquisition when companies need to remove duplicate positions, so it's unlikely that Waitr's layoffs have too much to do with the overall state of the company.

In the restaurant segment, layoffs have been somewhat of an anomaly, especially as many operators have struggled to find qualified employees to staff restaurants. In the accommodation and foodservice segments, there were 202,000 layoffs and discharges in April, down from 204,000 April 2018, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The monthly statistic has been pretty steady over the last few months as well, suggesting no dramatic economic implications.

When layoffs do occur, they have often been at the corporate level, such as with Del Frisco's and Long John Silver's. Before Del Frisco's proposed sale to L Catterton, corporate said it would reduce general and administrative positions at its headquarters by 12% to 15% to save $3 million this year.  Long John Silver's pulled a similar move earlier this year, saying it would cut about 20 positions at its headquarters. With many restaurants and delivery companies under pressure from investors to improve same-store sales growth in an industry that has started to slow down, layoffs could very well become more common in the future.