Twitter Inc, now owned by Elon Musk, that had laid off almost half of its staff on Friday is now asking some of the employees to return, Bloomberg reported on Sunday.
Some of the employees that are asked to return were laid off by mistake while the others were let go before the management realised how their work and experience may help build features that Musk has envisioned, the report said citing two sources familiar with the moves.
Read more: Elon Musk fires almost 50% of Twitter staff, blames low ad revenue caused by activists for the move
Twitter recently let go of about 3,700 employees from different teams like trust and safety, communications, machine learning ethics, engineering, content curation and human rights. From the Indian team they fired 180 of the 230 employees.
Many of these employees learnt that they were let go after they lost access to their company email and Slack. Now some have been asked to return indicating that the decisions taken by the company have been rushed and chaotic.
What will happen to US work visa holders?
The employees that were fired are now under severe pressure as several of them held American work visas. According to reports approximately 8 per cent of the company's workforce hold H-1B visas. The H-1B visa program basically allows US employers to temporarily hire foreign workers in speciality occupations. These employees now have 60 days to find another job that will sponsor their visa or they have to leave the US. The ones that have O-1 (that permits them to stay in the country only till their contract lasts) or L-1 visa (temporary work visa) don't have this luxury.
How are the layoffs affecting the employees?
As nearly half of the manpower has been fired the current employees are under the pressure to deliver new features as quickly as possible. Due to this pressure many employees have even slept in the office to meet the new deadlines.
The micro-blogging platform has recently rolled out the Twitter Blue subscription plan in select countries. It also plans on launching new features like long-form text and long-videos. Though according to a report by The New York Times this may be on hold until after Tuesday's midterm elections in the US due to concerns that it may be misused to sow discord.
