Poor souls in question are… have all been working in HTC’s manufacturing division in Taiwan. Laying them off lowers HTC’s employee count by roughly 22%. Official word from the company is that the layoff has been done in order to once more become profitable.
This is only the last in a long chain of HTC’s misfortunes. It all begun in February, when then-president of the company left to pursue a ”personal career plan”. Soon afterwards a hundred US employees of the company have been released as part of a merger of the smartphone and VR divisions. Speaking of company’s devices, they are not selling that great either: while U12+ is a good phone overall, its pressure-sensitive sides are more of an annoying gimmick than a selling feature, and the Vive Pro VR headset is seen as too costly.
Seems like working for HTC is not the best career option nowadays.