Twitter is planning widespread job cuts, to be announced as soon as this week, according to people familiar with the matter.

The company may cut about 8 per cent of the workforce, or about 300 people, the same percentage it did last year when co-founder Jack Dorsey took over as chief executive officer, the people said. Planning for the cuts is still fluid and the number could change, they added. The people asked not to be identified talking about private company plans.

An announcement about the job reductions may come before Twitter releases third-quarter earnings on Thursday, one of the people said. A Twitter representative declined to comment.

Twitter, which loses money, is trying to control spending as sales growth slows. The company recently hired bankers to explore a sale, but the companies that had expressed interest in bidding – Salesforce.com Inc, The Walt Disney Co and Alphabet Inc – later backed out from the process.

Twitter’s losses and 40 per cent fall in its share price the past 12 months have made it more difficult for the company to pay its engineers with stock. That has made it harder for Twitter to compete for talent with giant rivals like Alphabet, Google and Facebook. Reducing employee numbers would relieve some of this pressure.