Twilio announces third major round of layoffs with 5% workforce reduction

Chief Executive Officer Jeff Lawson said in a memo to employees Monday, “While I know it’s hard to undergo so much change, it’s all part of the necessary transition to profitable growth,” reported Bloomberg.

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Lawson informed that the cuts primarily affect salespeople for Twilio’s consumer data platform and contact centre software. He further added that following results of previous restructures that “underachieved” in their goal of helping these business units to achieve higher growth rate.

Also read: Twilio announces another round of layoffs, cutting 17% of workforce

Twilio has so far laid off more that 3,000 workers since September 2022 that almost equals to one-third of its total workforce in the year 2022. Following this news, Twilio’s shares fell 1.1% at 10:39 am in New York.

Second round of layoffs that involved 17% job cuts took place in February this year as part of a restructuring effort to focus on profitability. Following this move shares jumped 2% at that time. In its first round of restructuring the company laid off 11 percent of its workforce in September last year.

Also read: Twilio to cut staff by 11%, restructure after rapid expansion

Twilio also revealed that the company might incur $25 million to $35 million in charges related to the layoffs, it said in the filing. The recent round of restructuring is set to conclude by the end of the year. Spotify Technology SA also announced job cuts involving nearly one-fifth of its workforce in its third round of layoffs on Monday. 

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Twilio is well known in the field of making software that allows businesses to communicate with their customers. However, the company struggled to maintain its high revenue growth and investor interest that it once achieved during its peak. For marketing services, Twilio recently revealed that it would bring about out new artificial intelligence products.

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Last month, the Information reported that activist investor Anson Funds had built a stake in the company, and was pushing for a sale of Twilio in entirety, or a divestment of the business unit where the cuts are focused. A Twilio spokesman informed that the recent third round of layoffs  are unrelated to activist news. He said, “Over the past year, Twilio has been on a path of reorienting the business towards profitable growth.” 

(With inputs from Bloomberg)

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Updated: 05 Dec 2023, 10:04 AM IST