The cuts keep coming as BlackBerry’s handset business flails, with reports indicating the company might be cutting up to 40 percent of its workforce by year’s end.
The Wall Street Journal cites people familiar with the matter who foresee the layoffs coming in waves across all departments and likely costing thousands of BlackBerry employees their jobs.
Following the exciting news of a new flagship smartphone, the Z30, the rumors of more job cuts seems especially grim for the once formidable phone maker. But it should come as a huge surprise.
This summer, BlackBerry cut 250 jobs. In June of 2012, BlackBerry confirmed layoffs were in the works as it prepared to launch its revamped BlackBerry 10 operating system. Reports of the 2012 job cuts ranged in total from 2,000 to 6,000. Following prior job cuts in the summer of 2011, BlackBerry’s global workforce totaled around 16,000.
As the Wall Street Journal points out, BlackBerry’s workforce, as of last March, is now closer to 12,700. That’s still a large amount of people that could be affected by the sweeping cuts that could be on the way.
This summer, BlackBerry kicked off the reporting for its fiscal 2014 with dismal smartphone shipments for the first quarter. Although revenue for the first quarter was up nine percent annually, BlackBerry’s stocks still dipped 24 percent.
BlackBerry is down about a half a percent as of 2:01 p.m. CT.
