San Francisco, May 19 (IANS): US-based autonomous trucking company Tu Simple has announced to lay off about 30 per cent of its workforce globally as it works to preserve cash and stay in business.

According to TuSimple, the company had about 550 employees in the US prior to the layoff, and after the reduction, it will have about 220 employees, reports TechCrunch.

"We believe this is the right number of employees to work toward achieving our goals while preserving the cash on our balance sheet as well as retain strong publicly listed company capabilities," the company was quoted as saying.

The announcement, made early Thursday, comes a week after the company disclosed that it had been delisted by the Nasdaq for failing to file its quarterly report on time, according to the report.

The company hasn't filed a quarterly report for the fourth quarter or full-year results.

Moreover, the report said that the company plans to keep its Chinese-based subsidiaries and is no longer exploring a sale.

These subsidiaries, according to TuSimple, "have continued to make progress working with several OEMs on Level 4 and Level 2+ commercial projects".

This is the second restructuring in five months.

TuSimple laid off 25 per cent of its workforce in December last year, just a few weeks after the company's deal with Navistar (a US-based manufacturing company) to co-develop purpose-built autonomous semi trucks fell apart.