Twitter says layoffs part of 'streamlined roadmap'

Twitter said Tuesday that it will trim its workforce worldwide by 336 employees, or about 8 percent, as it looks for ways to attract a bigger audience.

The layoffs come as the nearly 10-year-old social network faces mounting pressure to broaden its appeal beyond its core users while also finding ways to consistently turn a profit.

Its chief executive, Jack Dorsey, who was appointed this month to usher in a new era at the company, said in a email to employees that the "team has been working around the clock to produce [a] streamlined road map."

"The road map is also a plan to change how we work, and what we need to do that work," Dorsey said in the email.

Twitter's workforce has risen quickly over the past few years, but the growth of its user base has been slower. As of June, the firm had about 4,100 employees, an increase of about 800, or more than 20 percent, compared with last year.

During its most recent quarter, Twitter reported that it had expanded its active user base 15 percent to 316 million.

In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the company said it expects to "reinvest savings" related to the layoffs and will spend $10 million to $20 million on severance packages.

Mark Mahaney, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, said that while the layoffs are not a "shocking surprise," Twitter's decision to slim down its engineering team could keep it from growing quickly.

"Twitter should be focused on growth ... and not efficiency at this stage in its life cycle," Mahaney said in a research note.

Twitter has been branching out, most notably buying the live-streaming service Periscope in March. Last week, the firm announced a new feature, Mentions, that allows brands and publishers to curate packages of Twitter content.

And it's clear that Twitter is doing a better job of making money off its existing users - it beat revenue and earnings expectations during its most recent quarter.

The company's stock jumped on the news, closing up 1 percent at about $29 a share. But in a reflection of investors' continuing concerns about its long-term prospects, Twitter's stock is still down nearly 20 percent for the year.