Details of Twitter's Layoffs

Employees put on ice through WARN Act period, offered one month of severance in return for a release

Last night, in the very first communication rank-and-file employees had received from leadership since Elon Musk completed his purchase of Twitter and fired its existing executives, Twitter confirmed widespread reports it would be conducting layoffs of about half of 7,500 person workforce.

Pawprints has obtained some of the company’s communications to those employees. Some highlights of the documents, which are included below:

• Twitter “is offering a severance package of one month of base pay (or OTE for commission based employees” in return for employee’s signing a release that would prevent them from suing the company. Relative to most severance packages I’ve heard of, that’s a pretty paltry offer. Moreover, Twitter has made clear that it won’t negotiate either the financial offer or the terms of severance agreement that it will email to laid off employees in about a week.

• The documents include a gesture at compliance with the complex of federal and state laws, known as the WARN Act, that are intended to give employees and their communities time to adjust to the reality of a sudden mass layoff or similar event. The WARN Act requires big employers like Twitter to give prior notice of any plant closing, mass layoff, or similar widespread loss of employment. It’s 60 days almost everywhere in America except for New York, where the state legislature pushed it out to 90 days. Instead of true advance notice, Twitter is notifying the affected employees that “today is your last working day at the company,” but delaying the end of their pay and benefits until after the applicable notice period has run.