So they're laying off 50 people, yet hiring for roughly comparable jobs.[1]
But, as was pointed out above, this isn't a money-saving exercise, this is giving up on a field.
In Mozilla you usually get hired for a specific position; programmers (or anyone, really) aren't liquid resources to be moved around randomly between teams. Larger companies have enough going on that if a project is shut down there's usually some other project to shift to that works for both the team and the programmer. Mozilla only has a thousand employees, so there will be very few openings to choose from based on your experience level, field, and interests.
From the original CNet article:
> Some affected employees are getting new roles in Mozilla, but those losing jobs get severance and job-hunting benefits, Mozilla said. Although about 50 people are affected by the cut, some might stay at Mozilla since they can apply for new positions, some of which Mozilla opened early to ease the pain of the layoffs.
Also, from the CNet article:
> "We have shifted our internal approach to the internet-of-things opportunity," Mozilla said in a statement, "to step back from a focus on launching and scaling commercial products to one focused on research and advanced development, dissolving our connected devices initiative and incorporating our internet-of-things explorations into an increased focus on emerging technologies."
The "layoffs" aren't because of money reasons, it's just a project being shut down.
So spare me the baseless accusations. ---
By the way, most employees and jobs at Mozilla are distributed. Nobody on my team shares time zone with more than one co-worker on a team of 7 engineers :)