A clear number for how many people Twitter is laying off in Boston is finally emerging, after a week of speculation following Elon Musk‘s $44 billion takeover of the company, thanks to an official state document obtained by the Business Journal.
The social media giant told state officials on Friday that it will be conducting a workforce reduction affecting employees at its offices on the third floor of 2 Center Plaza in Boston. Approximately 55 employees at the Boston office will be terminated, Twitter said.
The jobs being cut include 14 first- or mid-level officials and managers, 39 professionals and two administrative support workers. Terminations are expected to begin Jan. 4 next year.
“Affected employees will be paid all wages and other benefits to which they are entitled through their date of termination,” Twitter Human Resources wrote in the notice. “The Company provided notice to the affected employees via email on November 4, 2022.”
San Francisco-based Twitter signed a lease for an office in downtown Boston in 2019 and is still using the Center Plaza space, the Business Journal confirmed last week.
It is unclear how many employees based in Greater Boston are still working for Twitter after the cuts took place.
The company never responded to multiple requests made by the Business Journal in recent days to provide Boston’s headcount information. Twitter’s public relations and communications team was hit hard by layoffs and is now reportedly down to only a few people.
A lawsuit filed by Boston prominent labor attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan on behalf of some Twitter employees alleges that the layoffs started last week are in violation of labor laws, as the company allegedly failed to provide enough notice. The class action lawsuit was filed in federal court in San Francisco.
According to the complaint, one of the named plaintiffs is a Medford resident who was described as being an employee of the Cambridge office. A Business Journal inquiry last month found that Twitter does not appear to have a presence on Cambridge’s Portland Street anymore, although the company did not respond to a request to confirm or deny that they had officially vacated the office.
Mass layoffs started at Twitter about one week after new owner Musk’s takeover. At one point, Musk indicated he intended to lay off 50% of the company’s total workforce of 7,500 workers. After layoffs started, some of the people who were being cut were reportedly asked to come back.
“Twitter needs to become by far the most accurate source of information about the world,” Musk tweeted. “That’s our mission.”
