Twitter sued for ‘unfairly targeting’ women in layoffs

In brief

Two women who lost their jobs at Twitter during its recent layoffs have filed a discrimination lawsuit saying the company “disproportionately targeted” female employees in its cuts.

The suit was filed on Wednesday in San Francisco federal court and claimed that when Twitter let go of half of its workforce, around 3,700 staff, 57% were female workers compared to 47% male staff.

It also stated this rose to 67% of women in engineering roles that lost their jobs, compared to 48% of men.

Following his part-leveraged $44bn takeover of the company, Elon Musk has made widespread layoffs in an attempt to cut costs, with debt repayments soon to be added to its balance sheet.