UPDATE 1-Autonomous driving firm Aurora lays off 3% staff

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Jan 24 (Reuters) - Autonomous vehicle technology company Aurora Innovation said on Wednesday it had cut 3% of its workforce as part of a reorganization exercise.

Aurora had 1,700 employees by 2022-end, as per the company's securities filings.

"As we move toward commercial launch, we recently reviewed the entire organization to ensure we are working as effectively as possible ... Through this process, a limited number of roles were eliminated which impacted 3 percent of our total workforce," according to a company statement attributed to Cristopher Barrett, senior vice president, people.

The Pittsburgh-based company, which went public through a merger with a blank cheque firm in 2021, is building the technology that will power future self-driving trucks.

Aurora has partnerships with Continental AG and Volvo, and plans to deploy its first set of driver-less trucks on the streets this year.

Earlier this month, the company said it had finalized the design and architecture of the hardware for Aurora Driver autonomous driving system that Continental plans to produce in 2027.

Aurora said the partnership with the German company gives it a path to deploy autonomous trucks at scale after its initial driverless launch, planned at the end of 2024.

(Reporting by Yuvraj Malik and Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)