Twitter is reportedly laying off 300 employees
Twitter is looking to trim costs. The company may soon cut 8 percent of its workforce, or about 300 people, Bloomberg reported Monday citing anonymous sources.
The news comes after Twitter failed to secure a bid from a potential suitor. Disney, Salesforce and Google were interested in Twitter but later dropped their efforts, some reportedly citing concerns with the site's abuse problem.
The same percentage reduction in staff hit the network exactly a year ago shortly following cofounder Jack Dorsey's return as CEO. Dorsey said the company, which had more than 4,100 employees at the time, could benefit from a leaner engineering team.
You May Also Like
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
For this round of layoffs, Twitter may be looking to the sales team, TechCrunch reported. That's interesting given that Twitter, which is not profitable, could use an increase in revenues while cutting its high spending.
While Dorsey and his team have attempted to reinvigorate Twitter with new products like Moments, refinements like tweaking the character limit and an aggressive push to host more live video on the network, it has struggled to attract more users and impress investors.
Twitter's share price is down 40 percent over the last year. Its value only spikes upwards following acquisition reports.
Investors have repeatedly cited disappointment in Twitter's user growth. Twitter has 313 million monthly active users, which has struggled to grow since the company went public in 2013 and pales in comparison to Facebook's 1.71 billon.
"Twitter's cost structure was originally built to grow into a much larger user base, but with user growth stagnating we feel the company likely needs to reduce costs. We believe Twitter could reduce costs while preserving R&D innovation and investments," Robert Peck, an analyst at SunTrust, wrote in a research note Tuesday.
Twitter reports third-quarter earnings Thursday pre-market, a decision the company announced Monday prior to talk of layoffs. Tech giants Google and Amazon also report Thursday.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
Kerry Flynn is a business reporter for Mashable covering the tech industry. She previously reported on social media companies, mobile apps and startups for International Business Times. She has also written for The Huffington Post, Forbes and Money magazine. Kerry studied environmental science and economics at Harvard College, where she led The Harvard Crimson's metro news and design teams and played mellophone in the Band. When not listening to startup pitches, she runs half-marathons, plays with puppies and pretends to like craft beer.
