New Delhi : Twitter on Friday started laying off employees in India across engineering, sales and marketing, and communications units, sources said.

The number of employees who have been laid off is not clear at present. According to sources, there is still no clarification on the severance payout for staff laid off in the country. These layoffs are a part of a global restructuring ordered by the social media platform’s new owner Elon Musk.

Musk is expected to cut roughly half of Twitter’s 7,500-person global workforce.

Last week, as soon as Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk joined the company, he fired the then CEO Parag Agrawal.

The company temporarily closed its offices worldwide on Friday after telling employees they would be informed by email later in the day about whether they are being laid off.

As per an unsigned internal memo seen by The Verge, Twitter employees were notified in the email that the layoffs were set to begin.

The employees were to receive an email by 9 am PST on November 4, confirming whether they have been laid off or not, according to the internal memo, which also states that employee badge access to Twitter’s offices will be shut off “temporarily”.

“We acknowledge this is an incredibly challenging experience to go through, whether or not you are impacted,” the memo read.

“Thank you for continuing to adhere to Twitter policies that prohibit you from discussing confidential company information on social media, with the press or elsewhere,” the memo added.

The layoff comes a week after Musk became the Twitter owner.

Musk had already indicated that he would make job cuts at Twitter, telling employees at a town-hall meeting this summer that there needs to be “a rationalization of headcount” at the social network.

On October 30, asked by someone on Twitter to identify “the one thing that’s most messed-up at Twitter right now,” Musk replied, “There seem to be 10 people ‘managing’ for every one person coding” at Twitter.