A total of 65 local workers have lost their jobs with BlackBerry.
The company confirms to CTV News that it laid off that number of employees from its Global Alliances and Ecosystem group, which reportedly focused on developer relations.
“BlackBerry is working hard to return to profitability and we continue to optimize our resources to be in a better position to compete in this current mobile environment,” a BlackBerry spokesperson said in an email.
Instead, the spokesperson said, BlackBerry will “focus on new programs that will drive enterprise application development.”
That could include the collaboration with Amazon announced last week, in which BlackBerry’s next operating system will include the Amazon Appstore rather than BlackBerry’s proprietary download centre.
During last week’s BlackBerry annual general meeting, CEO John Chen said the company had moved through its “period of transition” and layoffs in Waterloo Region were nearing an end.
