Learning a new language can be hard for anyone to do. As it turns out so can selling the tools to learn one. If you don’t know what Rosetta Stone  is here is a look at how the company describes its approach, “We approach language learning the same way that you first learned a language — using a natural method that teaches new language directly, without translation. That means no more confusing grammar explanations or mind-numbing vocabulary lists to memorize. As the leading language-learning software in the world, Rosetta Stone makes learning a new language second nature. Millions of learners in more than 150 countries have already used our software to gain the confidence that comes with truly knowing a new language.”

It looks like the company is hoping that they can help people to learn a new language, or at least sell more of their programs to the average consumer, without quite as many employees. The company is getting ready to get rid of a number of workers as a response to a serious decrease in the number of units that the company is selling in the downturned market. For the time being the company will not say how many workers are going to be cut from the payrolls, but considering that the company employs more than 500 people these job cuts could easily qualify as a mass layoff action.

After all the company did give some advance notice, telling the worker about the job cuts on the 15^th, but according to some sources not letting them go on the same day. This kind of notice, which allows employees and the community at large to prepare for the job cuts, is one of the hallmarks of a mass layoff.  For those of you who are not familiar with the idea of a mass layoff action here is a look at how the federal government defines the term, “…mass layoff numbers are from establishments which have at least 50 initial claims for unemployment insurance (UI) filed against them during a 5-week period. Extended mass layoff numbers (issued quarterly) are from a subset of such establishments—where private sector nonfarm employers indicate that 50 or more workers were separated from their jobs for at least 31 days.”

While the company did not say which location it plans to cut from the company is cutting the job from at least some of the losses are likely to come from their headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. That state has been hit very hard by the current economic problems and this newest round of cuts will likely have a negative effect on the economy of the surrounding area. Some of you may recall our earlier coverage during which more Virginia workers were told to brace for layoffs, but for those of you who missed it here is an excerpt, “Gov. McDonnell is now asking state agencies to get ready for possible spending cuts, some of them as high as 6 percent. Is that confusing? Well, a lot of that depends on what is going on in the world outside of Virginia.”