Atlassian cuts 5% of headcount as the software maker focuses on high-priority areas

Business-software maker Atlassian mentioned Monday that it’ll lay off 500 workers, or round 5% of its workforce. Atlassian shares have been up 1% in prolonged buying and selling following the announcement.

The know-how trade has been contracting barely previously yr after Covid prompted people and firms to modified their behaviors, whilst unemployment continues to be low in developed international locations. Atlassian’s opponents Alphabet, Asana, GitLab, IBM, Microsoft and PagerDuty have additionally introduced job cuts in latest months, with central bankers in search of to tamp down rising costs by lifting rates of interest.

Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes, Atlassian’s co-founders and co-CEOs, mentioned the transfer is much less about monetary wants and extra about specializing in key priorities equivalent to IT service administration and serving to clients transfer workloads from on-premises knowledge facilities to the cloud. Cuts usually are not evenly distribute throughout the corporate, they wrote in a weblog put up.

The firm generated about $873 million in income within the fourth quarter, up about 27% yr over yr, though it ended the interval with a $205 million internet loss. Australia’s unemployment price in January was 3.7%, based on authorities statistics.

“While many teams across Atlassian are impacted, some of our most impacted teams include Talent Acquisition, Program Management, and Research & Insights,” Farquhar and Cannon-Brookes wrote. “We want to be clear these decisions are not a reflection of our teammates’ work. Every single person has made contributions that have changed our company for the better and will leave a lasting impact on their peers and teams. This is about rebalancing the roles we need across Atlassian first and foremost.”

Employees whom Atlassian is chopping will obtain 15 weeks of severance, plus one week for annually of employment, and so they can hold their laptops. Friday shall be their final day, a spokesperson instructed CNBC.

Atlassian relies in Sydney. Australia’s unemployment price in January was 3.7% on a seasonally adjusted foundation, based on authorities statistics.

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