- Twilio on Monday announced plans to lay off about 1,500 employees, or about 17% of its workforce, according to a blog post on the company’s website.
- The announcement comes after the company laid off around 11% of its workforce in September as part of a restructuring plan.
- Twilio had 8,992 employees as of September 2022, according to a company filing with the SEC.
BARCELONA, SPAIN – MARCH 1: Jeff Lawson, Founder, CEO and Chairman of Twilio addresses a press conference during Mobile World Congress on March 1, 2017 in Barcelona, Spain.
Joan Cros Garcia | Corbis News | Getty Images
Twilio on Monday announced plans to cut about 17% of its workforce, or about 1,500 positions, based on the 8,992 employees reported as of September 30, 2022 in the company’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Twilio announced the layoffs in a blog post on its website.
The announcement comes after the cloud communications software maker laid off around 11% of its workforce in September as part of a restructuring plan.
In an email to employees Monday, CEO Jeff Lawson said the additional cuts were due to the need to reorganize Twilio to thrive. “These changes hurt,” Lawson wrote. “The coming weeks will be about processing all of these changes and working together to adjust to our new structure.”
Twilio shares are up more than 2% Monday morning.
Lawson said Twilio is forming two business units to help the company spend less and become more efficient. One unit, Twilio Data & Applications, is led by Elena Donio and the second unit, Twilio Communications, is led by Khozema Shipchandler. Lawson said when executives looked at those two businesses, it was clear the company had “got too big,” particularly in communications.
Lawson said it was clear that Twilio would need to make “significant structural changes” to better execute on its strategy.
“It’s painful to say goodbye to so many talented people – but it’s necessary to put both our companies in the right shape to thrive,” he said.
Twilio is one of more than a dozen tech companies to announce layoffs in recent months. Last week Dell, Zoom and eBay announced significant job cuts. In January, Google announced plans to lay off more than 12,000 employees, Microsoft announced plans to lay off 10,000 employees, and Salesforce announced it would lay off 7,000 employees.