iRobot Lays Off 40 Bedford Employees

iRobot confirmed on Thursday the company's plans to lay off 80 employees, including 40 from the company's Bedford location.

Matthew Lloyd, Director of Communications for iRobot, said the layoffs will include 40 employees from the company's Bedford location, 30 as a result of the company's decision to close their North Carolina maritime office and 10 remote employees.

The company is seeing an environment of decreased defense spending this year and is predicting decreased defense spending in 2013 as well, Lloyd said.

"Due to the current defense spending environment and expectations for decreased spending in 2013, iRobot is implementing a broad restructuring of the business," according to a public statement released by iRobot on Oct. 23.

According to a Wednesday article in the Boston Globe, the job cuts follow a warning by iRobot in February of possible losses as a result of cuts in defense spending. 

“We are taking these actions in order to invest in our high growth Home Robot business as well as our emerging high potential remote presence business, while meeting our commitment to profitable growth,” said iRobot CEO Colin Ainge in a Wednesday statement. 

Lloyd said while the company has suffered in its defense and securities division this year, revenue for home robotics has increased 33 percent in the third quarter of 2012.

"It's really a tale of two cities," Lloyd said. "We are seeing shrinking defense budgets but significant increases in our home robot revenue."

Llyod said the federal government remains committed to the technological modernization of the military that iRobot can provide, but there are roadblocks that have led to a decrease in defense spending. 

"Overall the government is committed to the modernization of our military," Lloyd said. "Right now we're seeing that there is a lot of indecision and sequestration that had made it more difficult for us to predict defense spending."