RSA announced Jan. 7 that it would lay off security researchers and sales and support staff, part of a restructuring effort to eliminate redundancies since it was acquired by storage giant EMC in 2006.
Though the company declined to identify the number of employees affected, RSA spokesperson Matt Buckley said the layoffs affected “small numbers of employees” in each of the units and was aimed only at eliminating positional redundancies.
Stressing the move was not symbolic of any plans at RSA to downsize, Buckley said RSA will continue to invest, recruit and hire people in all major segments of its business, and efforts will be made to find other opportunities within the company for those who will be laid off in the coming weeks.
“I should also have mentioned,” he said, “that [the] restructuring forms part of the plan that EMC announced back in Q4 2006, that it would consolidate some operations to deliver a more unified, cost-effective experience to customers—and to further the integration of the more than 20 companies that had been acquired within a three-year period.”
EMC estimated in 2006 that the restructuring would ultimately affect about 1,250 employees globally, Buckley said.
“We are still working toward completing the restructuring,” he said. “In the meantime, both RSA and EMC continue to grow, and many employees whose jobs would have been impacted have found new positions within EMC.”