BlackBerry lays off 250 employees from Canada R&D department

It’s lay off season over at the BlackBerry offices again. The Canadian smartphone maker has swung the axe on 250 employees at its Ontario product-testing facility, a year after it cut thousands of jobs last year.

In a statement to TechCrunch, BlackBerry’s Lisette Kwong said_, “I can confirm on the record, that BlackBerry on Tuesday informed 250 employees of their termination in Waterloo."_ All these employees were from the new product-testing facility in Ontario, working in the research and development division. “This is part of the next stage of our turnaround plan to increase efficiencies and scale our company correctly for new opportunities in mobile computing. We will be as transparent as possible as those plans evolve,” she added.

More lay offs

The news of the firing comes only a day after the Vice President in charge of the BlackBerry Playbook, David J. Smith threw in his towel and parted ways with the company citing personal reasons. Even as BlackBerry is striving to remain relevant and revive its smartphone department, the tablet section has taken a beating over the last couple of years. After many delays and setbacks BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins announced last month that the company had abandoned plans of getting the BlackBerry 10 OS to PlayBoook.

The Canandian company is clearly focusing on making sure its smartphone department can regain its lost glory with the launch of BB 10. After launching the BlackBerry Z10 and the Q5 and Q10 that come with a QWERTY keyboard, the company seems to have two new phones up its sleeve for this year.

A leaked roadmap and images have revealed that BlackBerry is planning a Z10 like handset called the BlackBerry A10 which will sport a large 5-inch display as well as a BlackBerry 9720. While BlackBerry would want to assure that everything is on track with upcoming releases lined up, the constant lay-offs and departures of the top-brass of the company are not very assuring.