San Francisco, Jan 11 (IANS): US-based software company Scale AI, which uses software and people to label image, text, voice and video data for companies building machine learning algorithms, has laid off 20 per cent of its workforce.

"I have made the difficult decision to reduce the size of our team by 20 per cent, which means saying goodbye to many talented Scaliens," wrote founder and CEO Alexandr Wang in a blogpost.

"We saw strong sales growth through 2021 and 2022. As a result, we increased headcount assuming the massive growth would continue. However, the macro environment has changed dramatically in recent quarters, which is something I failed to predict," he added.

Employees who are affected will receive a minimum of eight weeks of severance and three months of healthcare.

In addition, the company is waiving the one-year equity cliff for employees with less than one year of tenure and offering immigration assistance to those on visas that require continued employment.

As part of other changes, the company plans to set significant operating expense reduction targets for each function, adjust its hiring targets, and re-evaluate any new offices.

"We need everyone to do their part to stay cost-conscious and efficient when it comes to spending throughout the year," Wang said.