Mar 07, 2023 11:55:00

Atlassian, known for business improvement tools such as Trello, Jira, and Confluence, dismisses 500 employees

Atlassian , which develops corporate software such as task management tool Trello , project management tool Jira , and collaboration tool Confluence, has announced that it will dismiss 500 people, which is 5% of all employees. Atlassian co-CEOs Mike Cannonbrooks and Scott Farquhar explained that the layoffs were not due to financial problems, but to focus resources on growth sectors such as cloud computing.

A difficult update on our team - Work Life by Atlassian
https://www.atlassian.com/blog/announcements/atlassian-team-update-march-2023

Atlassian Layoffs: 500 Jobs Eliminated in Latest Software Cutbacks (TEAM) - Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-06/atlassian-will-eliminate-500-jobs-in-latest-software-cutbacks

Atlassian's Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brooks sacks 500 staff amid tough tech market
https://www.afr.com/technology/atlassian-to-sack-500-people-5pc-of-workforce-20230307-p5cpz6

Atlassian cuts 5% of head count as it focuses on high-priority areas
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/06/atlassian-cuts-5percent-of-headcount-as-it-focuses-on-high-priority-areas.html

While many technology companies are mass-dismissing employees from 2022 to 2023, Atlassian, headquartered in Sydney, Australia, has not made large-scale layoffs. However, on March 6, 2023, Atlassian finally announced that it would dismiss 500 people, which is 5% of all employees. In a memo to employees, Canon Brooks and Farquhar wrote, 'Today is one of the toughest days in our 20-year history,' saying, 'We are saying goodbye to about 500 people, or 5% of our workforce. It will be done,” he said.

Atlassian has grown exponentially in the last few years, with the number of employees tripled over the past four years and employing 10,787 employees by the end of 2022. In October 2022, we were hiring more than 1,000 new employees, and we were conducting recruitment activities such as running a brand bus called 'AtlassiVan' in major cities.

Canon Brooks and Farquhar said, 'This decision does not reflect Atlassian's financial performance, but rather to reinvest in roles that adequately support its priorities, particularly cloud migration, IT service management, and enterprise. We have significant growth opportunities ahead of us as a company, such as cloud services, and as difficult as they are, this rebalancing will help us focus on those priorities.” It claims that the employee's performance did not lead to his dismissal.

Dismissal is mainly targeted at talent acquisition, program management, research analysis teams, etc., and employees who are dismissed this time will receive a 15-week retirement allowance plus a 1-week retirement allowance for each year of employment. In addition, if you delete the data remotely, you can continue to own the loaned laptop, and you can access Confluence, Zoom, Slack, Gmail, etc. until March 10th.

“Industry standards quickly block access to communication tools, but this approach just didn’t feel right to us,” Canon Brooks and Farquhar said. It's a very important part of the culture of the company.' 'We encourage you to take time to say goodbye by writing a farewell blog or sharing your handover. Some people may not want to act, but that's OK.'

An Atlassian engineer told

the Australian Financial Review, an Australian financial newspaper, that the engineering team is unlikely to lose many members, saying, 'I don't think developers will be hit that hard.' In the last few months, everyone felt that it would be done, ”he commented.