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In Brief
Posted:
2:21 PM PST · November 6, 2024
Image Credits:Sophie Park/Bloomberg / Getty Images
Roomba maker iRobot is laying off 105 employees — about 16% of the company’s workforce, — according a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The company says the cuts are part of an “operational restructuring plan.” Since the start of 2024, the company has reduced its global workforce by approximately 50%.
The latest cuts come after iRobot slashed roughly 350 jobs — about 31% of its workforce — earlier this year. The cuts were made after plans for an Amazon acquisition fell through.
Amazon had planned to acquire iRobot for $1.7 billion, but the companies mutually terminated the agreement, noting that they didn’t see a path to regulatory approval in the European Union. iRobot received a $94 million termination fee from Amazon as a result.
iRobot CEO Gary Cohen addressed the latest cuts during the company’s Q3 2024 earnings call on Wednesday.
“These moves, while challenging, have fundamentally changed the way we work with our partners to efficiently develop and build our robots,” Cohen said. “Our new operating model is able to deliver a significant increase in new product introductions with less than half the internal resources and approximately one-third the cost. This transformation is central to improve our performance and generate long-term shareholder value.”
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