In a surprising turn of events, GitHub, a leading software as a service (SaaS) platform, has announced substantial layoffs of 10 percent of its staff and the transition of all other employees to fully remote positions.
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, GitHub was able to remain a healthy business, and even managed to experience growth over the past year. Unfortunately, the economic effects of the pandemic have weighed heavily on many industries, and GitHub announced their decision to conduct staff layoffs. This will affect 200 employees, who have been released from their positions across all of GitHub’s offices.
This news comes almost a year after Microsoft, GitHub’s parent company, made similar cuts for the same reasons. Microsoft had previously acquired GitHub for $7.5 billion in 2018.
GitHub has said that the remaining employees will transition to fully remote work, which is a commitment Microsoft has undertaken with its other divisions. The company believes that it has the right tools and guidance in place to facilitate a successful remote transition.
“We’ve assembled a global team at GitHub who are passionate about creating great products that empower developers and make them successful. We believe that bringing the team together remotely and emphasizing a culture of collaboration will allow us to continue to meet and exceed the needs of our developers and customers,” said the company in their statement.
GitHub’s full-time remote culture is a major development for the software industry, as the majority of large corporations have been reluctant to allow their workforce to transition permanently to remote work. As the transition proceeds, GitHub’s full-time remote model promises to continue to move the software industry toward a more flexible way of working.
This is undoubtedly a difficult time for GitHub and its employees. To ease the stress of the transition, GitHub is offering generous severance packages and assistance with job placement. Though the cuts are a blow to the company, they are confident that they will emerge stronger and more agile by moving to a fully-remote workforce.
