Blue Apron implements a partial hiring freeze and lays off 14 recruiters

Blue Apron is chugging along on its post-IPO bumpy road. For starters, The meal-kit company’s VP of human resources and talent, Kate Muzzatti, has left, Bloomberg first reported. In light of Muzzatti’s departure, Blue Apron is looking for a chief human resources officer, which is an entirely new role at the company, TechCrunch has learned.

Blue Apron has also put into effect a hiring freeze on some salaried positions, but is still hiring for certain corporate roles and hourly fulfillment center positions. To wrap up the trifecta of bad news, Blue Apron let go 14 members of its recruiting team.

“As part of our long-term strategy, we recently completed an internal reorganization which involved several changes to our organizational structure, including the creation of our new consumer products team and the launch of a new fulfillment center team in Linden, which will replace our prior center in Jersey City,” Blue Apron CEO Matt Salzberg said in a statement to TechCrunch. “As part of these changes, we temporarily paused hiring for certain positions, while keeping others open, for the duration of our 2018 resource allocation process. As a result, we implemented a small reduction in staff on our recruiting team. Like any company, we carefully assess ourselves on a regular basis and implement changes as needed to manage our business for the future.”

Since going public, Blue Apron has been hit with a couple of lawsuits — one from a former employee alleging violation of the Family and Medical Leave Act and a couple from law firms alleging Blue Apron misrepresented the challenges it faces with customer retention, delayed orders and reduced ad spend.