BlackBerry has been hit with another round of layoffs. The scale of the latest round of job cuts appears to range from “a small number of employees” according to a company spokesperson to “more than half its salesforce” according to CanTech Letter which first broke the story.
The latter adds that a source described the consumer sales department as basically “gone” and that of enterprise sales as “gutted.” The report suggests that job cuts began in Waterloo, Ontario and will extend to the UK within days. ”I had twenty guys (from BlackBerry) on BBM from sales, and they have all posted alternate emails on their status,” explained the source.
The Wall Street Journal also reports that “several dozen members” of the company’s U.S. sales force were also let go on Monday. It received confirmation of the job cuts from the company: “I can confirm a small number of employees were laid off today,” a company spokesman told it, without providing additional details.
This latest round of layoffs follows two other over the summer. First came 250 cuts at a Waterloo product testing facility in July. Another 100 cuts were made in August. At the same time, the company has lost a number of senior executives.
BlackBerry is reportedly setting itself up for a quick sale. It has reportedly already identified potential bidders and is looking to run “fast auction process” that could yield a buyer by November. Among these is Fairfax Financial whose Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Prem Watsa, formerly sat on the company board.
Update (9/11/2013): BlackBerry confirmed to Bloomberg that some 60 positions, primarily in sales, were cut. It also moved some staff to the U.S. where BlackBerry 10 device sales have been weak.
Sources : CanTech Letter // The Wall Street Journal // Bloomberg