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Twitter plans company-wide layoffs

Staff Writer
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 12 Oct 2015
Twitter reportedly plans company-wide retrenchments following new CEO Jack Dorsey taking the helm last week.
Twitter reportedly plans company-wide retrenchments following new CEO Jack Dorsey taking the helm last week.

Twitter plans company-wide layoffs this week, according to company insiders. The news was broken by technology news Web site Re/code, which reports that sources inside Twitter confirmed retrenchments are on the cards for the social media giant.

It is still unclear how many staff will be laid off but it is likely that cuts will affect most, if not all, departments. The company employs about 4 100 people working in more than 35 offices around the world. When the company listed in 2013, it had around 2 300 employees.

A Twitter spokesperson told Reuters the company is "not commenting on rumour and speculation", but Re/code alleges it is likely many of the people impacted by the layoffs will be engineers. This as Twitter restructures its engineering organisation to make it more efficient.

The looming retrenchments come after Jack Dorsey was appointed permanent CEO of Twitter last week. The announcement ended months of speculation over who would take the top job at the micro-blogging service after Dick Costolo stepped down on 1 July.

Dorsey, who also co-founded Twitter, has been acting as interim CEO since Costolo's exit and now officially takes over the job. He will continue to serve as a member of the board, but will no longer act as chairman, a move most see as Twitter's attempt to allay concerns about the 38-year-old's dual role as head of mobile payments company Square.

Some investors had expressed concerns about whether Dorsey could run both Twitter and Square, which he also founded. Square is expected to go public this year and Dorsey may have to devote substantial time courting investors for the initial public offering.

Investors and analysts have, however, praised faster product rollouts since Dorsey took the helm in July, including a widely available "buy now" button that allows users to make purchases directly through Twitter.

Twitter shares fell around 3% on Friday following the news of possible retrenchments after gaining strength the previous few days as a response to Dorsey's appointment.

The company is working to rekindle growth after its latest quarterly results in July revealed the slowest rise in monthly average users since it went public in 2013. At the time, Dorsey called the performance "unacceptable."

So far, Twitter's shares have fallen almost 14% year-to-date.

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