BlackBerry reportedly lays off 1,000 workers in Waterloo

According to reports on Friday, Canadian smartphone firm BlackBerry has laid off a third of all workers at its Waterloo headquarters.

A Mobilesyrup report says 1,000 staff members have been made redundant, which equates to about 35 per cent of the workforce.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, employees working on the BB10 and devices have been hit hardest with 150 job cuts coming from that team, according to the report.

A small number of employees at BlackBerry’s office in Sunrise, FL. have also been cut.

A statement from BlackBerry confirmed the axe had fallen, but failed to get into specifics on numbers.

The rather impersonal statement reads: “As BlackBerry continues to execute its turnaround plan, we remain focused on driving efficiencies across our global workforce. This means finding new ways to enable us to capitalize on growth opportunities, while driving toward sustainable profitability across all parts of our business.

“As a result, a small number of employees have been impacted in Waterloo and Sunrise, FL. It also means that BlackBerry is actively recruiting in those areas of our business that will drive growth. For those employees that have recently left the company, we know that they have worked hard on behalf of our company and we are grateful for their commitment and contributions.”

See also: BlackBerry Priv review

The writing has been on the wall for BB10 for quite some time and it now seems unlikely we’ll see many further devices featuring the operating system.

BlackBerry now seems to be placing its remaining hardware eggs in the Android basket. Had the company done that years ago, perhaps it wouldn’t be in this position today. Unfortunately for the smartphone pioneer, we’ll never know for sure.