Last year, BlackBerry said it had some 2,700 employees in Waterloo region compared to 11,000 in 2011.
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BlackBerry has shed thousands of jobs since it began restructuring operations under chief executive John Chen, who has focused on shifting the company’s priorities since he joined in November 2013.
Blackberry also shrank its consumer smartphone business to cater more to the enterprise customers rather than the mass market. “As a result, some employees have been impacted”.
As of February BlackBerry had about 6,225 full-time employees, according to its website, although it’s not known what this number will fall to following these latest cuts. However, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported that these layoffs happened around early Monday, July 20.
The company would not confirm how many layoffs have been made only that they are “reallocating resources in ways that will best enable us to capitalize on growth opportunities.”
Last month, Chen said the company was “looking at every single function” within its operations in an effort to reduce costs.
Chen, at the time of the results, said that Blackberry has “a very good handle on our margins and product roadmaps have been well received”, and now it’s a matter of stabilising the revenue.
Chen said that in hardware the company’s “singular focus is on profitability”.
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Many of those changes have been centerd on outsourcing the company’s smartphone development and manufacturing.
