The edict reportedly came from new CEO Jonathan Jaglom, who took over the position last month. Former CEO and MakerBot founder Bre Pettis left the role to join Stratasys late last year, as did interim CEO Jenny Lawton a few months later. Mass layoffs at the most successful consumer 3D printing company probably don't paint a positive picture on the market for consumer 3D printers as a whole, but it remains to be seen if this restructuring will be beneficial or detrimental to the organization.

UPDATE: MakerBot has published a blog post confirming its recent round of layoffs and announced that it's also closed down three retail stores. The company states:

"Today, we at MakerBot are re-organizing our business in order to focus on what matters most to our customers. As part of this, we have implemented expense reductions, downsized our staff and closed our three MakerBot retail locations. With these changes, we will focus our efforts on improving and iterating our products, growing our 3D ecosystem, shifting our retail focus to our national partners and expanding our efforts in the professional and education markets."

[Image credit: Getty Images]