From The Verge: Roku plans to lay off an additional 200 employees, the company announced today in an 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, a little over four months after announcing a previous round of 200 layoffs last November. While the first round affected its US workforce specifically, today’s filing doesn’t specify where the affected workers are based.
The layoffs are expected to impact around 6 percent of Roku’s workforce, and are part of a restructuring plan to “lower the company’s year-over-year operating expense growth and prioritize projects that the company believes will have a higher return on investment.” The restructuring changes are expected to mostly be completed by the end of the second quarter of this year.
Reuters notes that Roku had around 3,600 employees as of the end of 2022. The company is one of many tech firms to have cut staff over the past year, alongside the likes of Disney, Netflix, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta.
Roku has been warning of financial difficulties for a while. In the second quarter of last year it warned of declining sales of its streaming boxes, which has knock on effects on other aspects of its business. The company has been diversifying into different areas like offering an expanded range of hardware, growing its advertising business, and producing original content. But clearly it’s not been enough to weather a difficult period for the industry.
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