Embattled BlackBerry smartphone maker Research in Motion has begun its latest round of job cuts by laying off just under a quarter of its workforce in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Earlier this month, SmartCompany reported that RIM was expected to lay off 3,000 staff worldwide by the end of August.
Canadian newspaper The Province reports Nova Scotia economic development minister Percy Paris has confirmed that 95 of the company’s 400 staff in Halifax, Nova Scotia have been made redundant.
The news comes just days after a study by Gartner showed a year-on-year decline of worldwide BlackBerry sales from 12,652,300 units in the second quarter of 2011 (11.7% worldwide marektshare) to just 7,991,200 (5.2% marketshare) for the same quarter this year.
The fall is blamed, in part, on repeated delays to the company’s next-generation BlackBerry 10 devices, which are now not expected to be released until early next year.
Andrew Sadauskas is a former journalist at SmartCompany and a former editor of TechCompany.
