Communications software provider company Twilio has announced that it will be laying off 11% of its workforce between 800 and 900.
In a message to staff, CEO Jeff Lawson called the layoffs “wise and necessary,” blaming them partially on Twilio’s rapid growth over the last several years and “[lack of focus]” on key priorities.
“I take responsibility for those decisions, as well as the difficult decision to do this layoff,” Lawson wrote in a letter sent internally and published on Twilio’s blog.
“Twilio has always been a growth company. And as you know, we’re committed to being a profitable growth company. At our scale, being profitable will make us stronger … We ultimately found that some investments no longer make sense and identified areas where we can be more efficient.
The layoffs are resulting due to a restructuring plan designed to reduce operating costs, improve operating margin and shift its selling capacity to accelerate software sales. The company currently employs over 7,800 across various offices.
All impacted Twilio employees will receive at least 12 weeks of pay, plus one week for every year of service, and the full value of the company’s next stock vest.
Founded in 2008, Twilio has 26 offices in 17 countries and counting, with headquarters in San Francisco and other offices in Atlanta, Bangalore, Berlin, Bogotá, Denver, Dublin, Paris, Prague, Hong Kong, Irvine, London, Madrid, Munich, Malmö, Mountain View, Redwood City, New York City, São Paulo, Sydney, Melbourne, Singapore, Tallinn, and Tokyo.
The layoff is reported by various companies like HCL, Snap, Microsoft, Twitter, TikTok, Meta, and Google have either laid off employees or frozen new hirings.
The development of either layoff or hiring slowdown comes after IT companies, crypto exchanges, and financial firms cut out jobs and slow down the hiring process due to slow global economic growth caused by higher interest rates, rising inflation, and an energy crisis in Europe.
