Twitter is expected to begin laying off approximately half its 7,500 staff a little over a week after Elon Musk took control of the company in a $44bn takeover.

Twitter employees were instructed to go home and not go into the offices on Friday as the cuts go ahead.

In a memo sent to staff on Thursday evening signed 'Twitter', the social media company said it would alert employees by 4pm in Ireland of the job losses.

“In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global work force,” the email said. “We recognise that this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but this action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward.”

Twitter employees who are not affected will be notified via their work email address while staff who have been laid off will be informed of next steps in a message sent to their personal email address.

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Workers reportedly said goodbye to their colleagues and posted heart and salute emoji in the company's Slack chat after receiving the memo, and some employees said they had already lost access to the company's systems, a possible prelude to being laid off.

The New York Times reported that previous internal messages and an investor in the company indicated that about half the Twitter workforce will be laid off. The company employs about 500 people at its offices in Dublin.

Employees filed a class action lawsuit against Twitter on Thursday, arguing that management was conducting mass lay-offs without providing the required 60-day advance notice, in violation of California state and federal law.

The lawsuit asked the San Francisco federal court to issue an order to restrict Twitter from soliciting employees being laid off to sign documents without informing them of the pendency of the case.

While labour laws in the US don’t provide employees with much protection when it comes to terminating a contract of employment, Ireland-based staff enjoy a range of rights under Unfair Dismissals and Redundancy Payments legislation.

Moira Grassick, COO at Peninsula Ireland, said any employees working in the Irish office facing redundancy could seek to enforce their rights under Irish and EU law if the relevant procedures are not followed prior to terminating their employment contract.   

“Given the sudden nature of these job cuts, employees are likely to query why they have been selected for redundancy,“ she said.

“In a typical redundancy situation, the employer would need to be able to demonstrate that they used a fair and objective selection process to determine which employees to let go. This would include supporting paperwork recording why certain employees were selected for redundancy over others.”

Irish law requires that redundancy proposals should include a consultation procedure to allow those employees who are at risk of redundancy to participate in the process and suggest possible alternatives to redundancies.

“If reports are true, the scale of these redundancies will also bring it within the scope of the collective redundancy protections set out in the Protection of Employment Acts,” said Grassick.

“As the thresholds that trigger collective redundancy protection look likely to be exceeded, Twitter will need to consider if they have complied with the obligation to to engage in an information and consultation process with employees’ representatives, and to notify the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment of the proposed collective redundancy.”

Grassick added that employers are prohibited from issuing any notice of redundancy during the mandatory employee information and consultation period and until 30 days have elapsed from the date on which the minister has been notified.

Botched downsides

Tech workers operating under contracts for service are not afforded the same rights as employees working under a contract of employment. Other employees may not have the required period of service to benefit from the protections set out in the Unfair Dismissals and Redundancy Payments legislation.

“A botched redundancy process can expose a company to significant financial downsides,” said Grassick. “If an employee succeeds with an unfair dismissal claim, they may receive up to two years’ gross salary in compensation.

“There is also the reputational damage that comes with a badly managed redundancy process. Any subsequent claims by employees and negative experiences have the potential to negatively impact on the reputation of a business.

“This is a difficult time for Twitter employees. It seems possible that many of them could be seeking legal advice if their employment rights are not upheld by the tech giant.”

Twitter is the latest tech company to announce job losses after Stripe on Thursday announced it was laying off around 14% of its workforce, and Lyft said it would cut 13% of its staff.

(Pic: AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)