Twitter’s CEO, Jack Dorsey, has decided to lay off 336 people as part of a restructuring plan. As of June, the Twitter workforce numbered 4,200 employees. Dorsey confirmed the decision Tuesday in a memo sent to employees and shared through his Twitter account.
Despite the fact that a gigantic effort is put out there to finish a streamlined roadmap for Twitter, its video app Vine and live broadcast service Periscope, Dorney announced that a smaller Twitter workforce will have to finish the job. “Product and Engineering are going to make the most significant structural changes to reflect our plan ahead.
Jack Dorsey makes first important decision since appointed as CEO
“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 organization will be streamlined in parallel.”, said Dorsey in his memo, according to USA Today.
The news of a smaller Twitter workforce had the company’s shares grow by 3,2%, in pre-market trading following the announcement. Although Dorsey was appointed in this position last week, he shows that he’s not afraid to cut to the bone when it comes to hard calls. Alongside the Twitter workforce reduction decision, Dorsey ordered that Twitter’s plans for an expanded headquarters in San Francisco to be put down for now.
Not the best start in managing the social network?
“It’s a tough way for Jack Dorsey to introduce himself to the company, but Twitter needs to tighten its belt until it can figure out its user growth problem,” said Jan Dawson, chief analyst with Jackdaw Research, quoted by the above-mentioned source.
Twitter has been struggled recently in attracting new users. About 300 million people sign in to use the service at least once a month, but Facebook is well ahead, with nearly 1.5 billion users. Even Instagram, with 400.000 users, surpassed Twitter.
