Twitter Korea decimated, communications team sacked

A Twitter headquarters sign is shown in San Francisco, Friday, Nov. 4, 2022. [AP]

Twitter Korea is a ghost town, with reports emerging that it may have fired most of its employees.

"Departments not directly related to sales were hit hard. Except for Country Director Shin Chang-seob and a few departments, most were dismissed," one employee said.

Shin has been country director since June 2013 and is still listed on LinkedIn as being in that post.

The communications department has been sacked entirely, so information coming out of the company is limited — only a single email address has been provided — press@twitter.com — and no replies to questions sent to that address were immediately received. The phones at Twitter Korea, which has a whole floor at Gangnam Finance Center, aren't being answered.

Erum PR, an outside public relations firm that represented Twitter Korea, is no longer engaged by the company.

According to reports from employees that have received notice, about 20 people have been let go, and it has been estimated that total staffing was around 30.

“Even as I was watching news from overseas about the layoffs, I thought Korea could be an exception,” said an employee from Twitter Korea.

“I’m planning to go to the office Monday and try to figure out the situation and future plans,” said the employee, who did not want to be named.

“I don’t have a clear idea of what’s going on,” said another employee of Twitter Korea who also wished to remain anonymous. “We’re actually relying more on overseas news reports to figure out what’s happening.”

Twitter is the No. 6 social media provider in Korea, according to StatCounter.

News of a housecleaning at Twitter Korea, which has been in operation since 2012 and is a locally-incorporated subsidiary of the parent, comes as Elon Musk, who took control of the company two weeks ago, overhauls the social media company.

Twitter employees received an email Friday entitled “Your Role at Twitter,” which told them that they would be no longer working at the company. A total of around 3,700 employees were let go, according to media reports.

“In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday,” read the email from Twitter, released through screenshot images from employees. “This action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward.”

Employees who were let go received the notice email through their personal accounts, as they were locked out of their Twitter company emails, according to employees. The email specified that employees will “remain employed by Twitter and will receive compensation and benefits through your separation date of Januaray 4, 2023,” according to screenshot images shared online.

The massive layoff was to some extent expected, according to insiders at Twitter. The New York Times quoted a Twitter employee saying that “The red wedding has begun.” The red wedding refers to a scene from the HBO drama series “Game of Thrones,” in which a number of key characters were killed off.

Employees in departments such as Twitter policy, product safety, communication and accessibility were the main targets of the layoffs, according to a report by The Verge on Saturday. In some cases, entire departments were completely wiped out as all members of those departments were given notice. At Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco, about 900 of its 2,500 employees were among those let go.

“We promise to normalize Twitter and relist the company within three years,” Musk said previously.

“Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day,” tweeted Musk on Friday.

The company almost immediately raised the price of Twitter Blue to $7.99 and said that anyone who wants to have a blue check — which indicates that the identity of the account holder has been verified — would have to subscribe.

Pfizer and automakers Volkswagen and GM announced that they would temporarily stop advertising on Twitter.

Five Twitter employees filed a lawsuit at the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, saying that “failing to give sufficient notice before mass layoffs is a violation of federal and California law.”

The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of the United States requires employers to give at least 60 days’ notice in the event of mass layoffs or closures of more than 50 employees at a time.

“We filed this lawsuit tonight in an attempt the make sure that employees are aware that they should not sign away their rights and that they have an avenue for pursuing their rights,” said Shannon Liss-Riordan, the attorney in charge of the lawsuit against Twitter, in an interview with Bloomberg.

The United Nations Human Rights Council also expressed concerns about the mass layoffs of Twitter. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk issued an open letter to Musk on Saturday, urging him to “ensure human rights are central to the management of Twitter” under Musk’s leadership.

“The Korean Labor Standards Act applies here because the employees who received the notice are employees of the domestic firm of Twitter,” said Ahn Tae-eun, a certified public labor attorney. “It is legal procedure to give notice of dismissal at least 30 days in advance. If the notice said that employees were to be let go on that same day, it could be considered unfair dismissal.”

“If the company recommended resignation or offered more than one month’s salary and severance pay, whether this case is an unfair dismissal needs to be reconsidered,” added Ahn.

“It would be critical whether the dismissal notice really did say 'This is your last day working for Twitter,' as some reports claim,” said another labor attorney, who requested anonymity. “In Korea, companies never write such phrases in notices for fear it can be seen as unfair dismissal. But in western countries notices tend to be more direct.”

“Even if the company had reasons for a mass layoff, the circumstances in which those are accepted as fair in Korea are very tricky,” said the labor attorney.

BY HA SUN-YOUNG, LIM JEONG-WON [lim.jeongwon@joongang.co.kr]