Roku is the latest tech company to announce a second round of layoffs with today’s news that it’s letting go of 6% of its workforce, or around 200 employees. The company disclosed the cuts in an SEC filing, explaining that the decision is part of a larger plan to lower its year-over-year operating expense growth and prioritize projects that it believes will have a higher return on investment. The company had laid off 200 U.S. employees back in November, citing economic conditions in the industry.
The new filing also said the restructuring would result in the “exit and sublease” of certain office space Roku no longer occupies.
The plan will cost Roku approximately $30 to $35 million in non-recurring charges related to matters like severance costs, notice pay, employee benefit contributions, and other related costs related to the cease of use of its office facilities. Roku said it expects the majority of those charges to be incurred in the first quarter of this year. It expects the headcount reductions, including the cash payments to be “substantially complete” by the end of the second quarter of this year, the filing also stated.
In its earlier round of layoffs, Roku had said the current economic conditions had necessitated the layoffs as the company needed to slow down the growth of its operating expenses. The news had then followed Roku’s third-quarter results, where it had warned investors of an unsatisfactory fourth quarter ahead.
In its most recent earnings announced in February, however, Roku beat its own revenue expectations with total net revenue of $867.1 million for Q4 2022. It had predicted revenue would come in around $800 million, while analysts were predicting a decline of 7% year-over-year to $804.19 million. It also announced 70 million active accounts globally in 2022, up from the 65.4 million it had in Q3. However, Roku’s operating losses had widened to $249.9 million, up from a loss of $147 million in the prior quarter.
The company didn’t disclose which roles or locations would be impacted by this latest round of cuts. Roku didn’t immediately return requests for comment on the matter, but we’ll update as we learn more.
Roku is not the only tech company to dole out its headcount reductions over a period of many months. Amazon this month did the same, as did Meta and others.
