The Microsoft-owned software development and version control service provider said the layoffs and the shift to remote work are designed to protect the short-term health of its business. Credit: GitHub GitHub, the software development and version control service provider owned by Microsoft, announced it would be cutting 10% of its workforce and transitioning the remaining employees to remote work in order to safeguard the company’s immediate financial stability. “We announced a number of difficult but necessary decisions and budgetary realignments to both protect the health of our business in the short term and grant us the capacity to invest in our long-term strategy moving forward,” a GitHub spokesperson said in an email statement. On Thursday, GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke sent an email to employees informing them about the upcoming changes including the layoffs. “To start, we will align our work with the areas where we can best impact these goals and our customers’ needs across all of our products. Unfortunately, this will include changes that will result in a reduction of GitHub’s workforce by up to 10% through the end of FY23,” Dohmke wrote in his email. The estimated 300 outgoing employees, which constitutes close to 10% of the company’s 3,000 workforce, will receive severance packages and career transition assistance services, the company said. The layoffs, which were first reported by Fortune, come short of a month after the company put a hiring freeze on January 18, which continues to be in effect. More cost reduction efforts To reduce costs further, GitHub, according to Dohmke’s email, will move to a fully remote work environment. “One of our decisions is to move toward a fully remote GitHub. We are seeing very low utilization rates in our offices around the world, and this decision is a testament to the success of our long-standing remote-first culture,” Dohmke wrote in his email. However, the company said it will not vacate its offices until their leases end. In addition to going remote, the company plans to increase its laptop refreshing cycle and move to Microsoft Teams for all video collaboration in order to drive costs down even further. “Effective immediately, we will be moving laptop refreshes from three years to four years,” Dohmke wrote, adding that the move to Teams is expected to be completed by September. GitHub will continue to use Slack for day-to-day collaboration, the company said. Large technology companies including Microsoft, Oracle, Google, Amazon and Meta have continued to lay off employees since August last year. Last month, GitHub-parent Microsoft announced the company’s plans to lay off 10,000 employees. Layoffs at technology firms have continued in the new year with these companies laying off more employees than in any other month since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Related content news analysis OpenAI announces new multimodal desktop GPT with new voice and vision capabilities OpenAI announced what it says is a vastly superior large language model capable of interacting with human-like speeds using text, voice, and visual prompts. But at least one analyst said the company is just playing catch-up with competitors at this p By Lucas Mearian May 13, 2024 7 mins Generative AI Emerging Technology news Apple makes a deal to open iPhone to Generation GenAI The company is reportedly working on a deal with OpenAi's ChatGPT to bring generative AI to iPhone and Siri. By Jonny Evans May 13, 2024 4 mins iPhone Siri Apple news EC to include Teams as part of antitrust charges despite Microsoft concessions Unbundling the collaboration suite from Office was not enough to appease investigators, who continue to investigate anticompetitive practices by the tech giant. By Elizabeth Montalbano May 13, 2024 4 mins Regulation Microsoft Teams feature Windows 11 Insider Previews: What’s in the latest build? Get the latest info on new preview builds of Windows 11 as they roll out to Windows Insiders. Now updated for Preview Build 26120.470 for the Dev channel and Preview Build 22635.3575 for the Beta channel, both released on May 10, 2024. By Preston Gralla May 13, 2024 255 mins Small and Medium Business Microsoft Windows 11 Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe