Twilio to lay off 11% of its total workforce as tech layoffs top 41,000

Cloud communications provider Twilio will lay off 11% of its total workforce as part of a major restructuring plan, according to an SEC filing published Wednesday.

According to the filing, Twilio said the Restructuring Plan will include the elimination of approximately 11% of the Company’s current workforce. The company had 7,867 employees as of Dec. 31, 2021.

“On September 12, 2022, the compensation and talent management committee of the board of directors of Twilio Inc. (the “Company”) approved a restructuring plan that is designed to reduce operating costs, improve operating margins, and shift the Company’s selling capacity to accelerate software sales (collectively, the “Restructuring Plan”). The Restructuring Plan includes elimination of approximately 11% of the Company’s current workforce.”

In a separate letter to employees, Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson said the company decided to lay off staff in order to run more efficiently and to align the company’s investments with its priorities. He said the decision was “extremely difficult,” but also “wise and necessary.”

“Twilio has grown at an astonishing rate over the past couple years. It was too fast, and without enough focus on our most important company priorities,” Lawson said in the letter. “I take responsibility for those decisions, as well as the difficult decision to do this layoff.”

Twillio is the latest in a series of tech companies to announce staff cuts. In recent months, tech companies, crypto exchanges, financial firms, and banks have reduced their headcount and slowed hiring as global economic growth weakens due to looming recession, inflation, higher interest rates, the energy crisis in Europe, and the ongoing war in Ukraine.

The global economic downturn that started in the second quarter of this year is beginning to have a major impact on tech companies. As we reported last month, over 32,000 tech workers lost their jobs in July. That number has since climbed to about 41,000 in the first week of September, according to the latest tally from CrunchBase, a platform for finding business information about private and public companies.

In recent months, tech companies, crypto exchanges, financial firms, and banks have reduced their headcount and slowed hiring as global economic growth weakens due to looming recession, inflation, higher interest rates, the energy crisis in Europe, and the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the US tech layoffs may persist for the foreseeable future after the report of new inflation data. Yesterday, the six largest U.S. tech companies lost over $500 billion in just one day of the stock market rout. Apple, the world’s most valuable public company, suffered the most loss closing at $153.84 for a loss of just under 6%. The carnage didn’t stop there. Microsoft lost over 4%, Meta Platforms down more than 7%, and chip giant Nvidia shed 9.5%.

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