Topline
Around 80% of Twitter staff in India—one of the firm’s largest markets—were fired last week, while Twitter is reportedly trying to bring back some of the workers it laid off and continues to advertises dozens of job openings both on LinkedIn and its careers page in the latest sign of chaos days after new CEO Elon Musk controversially cut nearly half of its workforce.
Twitter headquarters is shown in San Francisco.
Key Facts
Despite laying off around 3,700 workers on Friday, Twitter’s LinkedIn page continues to display more than 200 job openings at the company, including some listings that were added last week—after Musk’s takeover.
The “careers” section on Twitter’s corporate website also lists about 92 openings across the world, although it is unclear if these openings are for roles that were affected by last week’s layoffs.
Some of the roles being advertised includes a Public Policy Manager based out of Washington D.C., a Senior Product Manager, Platform Manipulation based anywhere in North America, among several others.
According to Bloomberg, Twitter is also reaching out to a number of employees who were laid off last week to see if they would be willing to return to their jobs.
People who are being reached out to include those who were fired “by mistake” and those whose skills the new management did not anticipate would be critical to help build some of the features that Musk wants to implement, the report added.
Earlier on Sunday, journalist Casey Newton reported that people at the company were putting together a list of names that they want to bring back.
Forbes has reached out to Twitter for a comment.
News Peg
Some of the worst impacts of Twitter’s layoffs were felt in India, where the company reportedly fired nearly 180 of its 230 workers. According to Bloomberg, 70% of the job cuts in India impacted the product and engineering team which worked with the global engineering team. Twitter’s decision was criticized by India’s IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw who told the Business Standard: “We condemn the way Twitter has sacked employees in India. They should have given the employees a fair time for transition.” The move is likely to impact Twitter’s growth in what is its third largest global market behind the U.S. and Japan. India is the largest market for all three of Meta’s major platforms: Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
Key Background
Last week, Twitter was hit with a lawsuit over its decision to lay off nearly half of its workforce in a California federal court. The lawsuit alleged that Twitter’s layoffs were in violation of both federal and state labor laws—specifically the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN Act)—as the company failed to give workers the required minimum 60 days of notice. While Twitter hasn’t officially responded to the allegations, Musk tweeted all laid off workers have been offered 3 months of severance “which is 50% more than legally required.” The massive layoffs are part of a broader effort by Twitter to cut costs amid a slump in revenue from advertisers who have paused spending on the platform over content moderation concerns.
Further Reading
Twitter Now Asks Some Fired Workers to Please Come Back (Bloomberg)
Twitter Workers Sue Over Sudden Mass Layoffs (Forbes)
Musk Warns Twitter Will Permanently Ban Impersonators—After He Gets Parodied By Verified Users (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/11/07/twitter-reportedly-asks-fired-workers-to-return-heres-what-to-know-about-the-aftermath-of-its-mass-layoffs/