Mozilla cuts 30 percent of its workforce

The Mozilla Foundation, under whose umbrella the Firefox Internet browser and the Thunderbird e-mail program are developed, is reducing its workforce by 30 percent. According to the US tech news site Techcrunch, around 35 to 40 of the 120 employees are affected. Mozilla confirmed the job cuts, but did not comment on the figures. This is already the second wave of redundancies at Firefox this year. In February, around 60 jobs were already cut as part of restructuring measures.

The departments currently affected are Advocacy and Global Programs, which are being dissolved or merged into other parts of the foundation. The Advocacy department was responsible for campaigns for internet freedom and digital rights and carried out political lobbying for an open internet. The umbrella term Global Programs covers international education initiatives, the promotion of digital skills and similar activities.

"Relentless onslaught of change"

A spokesperson for the non-profit foundation spoke of a "relentless onslaught of change" that was being met with the restructuring. The Mozilla Foundation is threatened with the loss of most of its previous income after payments by Google were deemed illegal in an antitrust case in the USA. The search engine provider has paid billions to Apple, Samsung and Mozilla over the years to be the default search engine in their systems and browsers.

Mozilla itself explained that it wanted to become more focused through the redundancies and become more agile through reorganization. It is also a matter of adapting to technological change. Core objectives such as data protection, inclusion, decentralization and achieving greater security and transparency on the web will continue to be pursued despite the changes.

The Mozilla Foundation has existed as a non-profit organization since July 2003. In 2005, the commercial Mozilla Corporation was founded, which is responsible for the further development, marketing and support of Firefox and Thunderbird.

(mki)