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Twitter laying off 8 percent of employees

By Jacob Kastrenakes
Source SEC

Twitter announced plans today to lay off up to 336 employees, around 8 percent of its total workforce. The decision comes just a week after Jack Dorsey was given the role of CEO, and his willingness to make decisions like this was apparently part of the reason he got the job. Twitter says that the layoffs are meant to help it focus on "top product priorities," while improving its overall efficiency. In an email to employees, published by The Wall Street Journal's Yoree Koh, Dorsey says those priorities are in creating "experiences which will have the greatest impact," like Twitter's Moments, a new feature meant to appeal to a broader audience.

Twitter's product and engineering teams will see the most significant layoffs. In particular, Dorsey notes that he feels Twitter's engineering division will function best with a "smaller and nimbler team," though one that remains the biggest piece of Twitter. Twitter expects to pay out about $10 million to $20 million as a result of this restructuring, "substantially all of which" will be for severance costs. Overall, though, Twitter seems to say that the company's bottom line will improve because of these layoffs in the short term, with its forecasted quarterly revenues now projected to be above or at the high end of its previously stated range of $545 million to $560 million.

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