Twitter announced this week it will cut 8% of its global workforce as part of a restructuring aimed at driving efficiencies and narrowing its product focus.
In an SEC filing on Tuesday, Twitter said 336 staff will be made redundant, resulting in severance costs of US$10 million-$20 million. The restructuring will cost $5 million-$15 million.
Most of the charges will be accounted for in the quarter ended 31 December 2015.
In an email to staff, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey – who was recently appointed CEO after holding the role on an interim basis in the wake of Dick Costolo’s departure – said the company’s product roadmap will focus on the user experiences that management believes will have the greatest impact, resulting in changes to its product and engineering departments.
"We feel strongly that Engineering will move much faster with a smaller and nimbler team, while remaining the biggest percentage of our workforce. And the rest of the organisation will be streamlined in parallel," he said.
"So we have made an extremely tough decision: we plan to part ways with up to 336 people from across the company," he continued, pledging "generous" redundancy packages and help with finding new jobs.
"This isn’t easy. But it is right. The world needs a strong Twitter, and this is another step to get there," Dorsey said.
