HTC to lay off 1,500 employees from its Taiwan division in an effort to save money

HTC is laying off 1,500 workers from its Taiwan manufacturing division in an effort to recover from months of poor quarterly results and try to return the long-struggling smartphone manufacturer to profitability, via Engadget.

As noted by Bloomberg Taipei’s Samson Ellis, the layoffs are downsizing 22 percent of HTC’s entire workforce, marking a significant reduction of the company as it tries to reorganize itself to better weather the future.

It’s important to note that these 1,500 employees aren’t coming from the 2,000 workers from HTC’s design team that went over to Google in the $1.1 billion purchase from back in January — although it likely doesn’t spell good news to HTC that a large portion of its design team isn’t around to help right the ship going forward.

It’s not the first batch of layoffs to hit the company either — earlier this year, HTC laid off several employees from its US offices during a reorganization that saw it combine its VR and smartphone divisions. Between the Google acquisition, the reorganization, and the recent rounds of layoffs, it could be an indication of a smaller, more focused HTC that could try to compete less in the crowded smartphone arena and instead stick with projects like VR. But the question remains whether or not that will be enough to reverse the company’s fortunes.