Israeli company Toyga Media has laid off some employees in its Israeli office, sources with knowledge of the matter shared with Finance Magnates. The job cuts are resulting from an effort to optimize the cost structure of the company’s operations.

According to one source, the number of layoffs amounted to at least 11 percent of the global workforce of the company. With over 500 employees at the firm, total job cuts affected several dozen people. Most of the cuts are amongst the development team in Israel, with operations shifting to the Ukrainian offices of the company in Kiev and Odessa.

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Toyga Media

Toyga was founded in 2008, with the firm offering services in the financial services sector including some forex brokers.

Numerous brokers have been refocusing their technology and R&D operations outside of Israel with Eastern Europe being one of the top destinations in recent years. The competitive landscape in the Israeli fintech space, it is becoming a tough environment to find cost-effective developer talent.

Dealing With Rising Costs

Outsourcing of technology teams outside of Israel has been a popular trend in the brokerage industry for many years. With the entrance of countries such as Bulgaria and Romania into the EU in 2007, and accession talks with Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina more recently, a number of Israeli firms have flocked to open local hubs in countries with favorable labor laws and competitive tax regimes.

In the aftermath of the Ukrainian conflict that shattered the country since 2014, the country has become an attractive destination with a relatively cost-effective talent pool.