Microsoft is laying off around 1,900 employees in its gaming division simply weeks after finishing its $69 billion acquisition of online game big Activision Blizzard.
Phil Spencer, the CEO of Microsoft Gaming, circulated a memo to staff saying that the layoffs, which quantity to round 8% of the division, will affect staffers at Xbox, Activision Blizzard and ZeniMax.
The memo was first obtained by the news site The Verge.
Spencer wrote in his memo that he and his crew have “recognized areas of overlap” for the reason that software program big absorbed Activision Blizzard and its approximately 13,000 employees last year.
“As a part of this course of, now we have made the painful choice to cut back the scale of our gaming workforce by roughly 1,900 roles out of the 22,000 folks on our crew,” in accordance with the memo.
Mike Ybarra, president of Blizzard Leisure, will depart the corporate as a part of the restructuring.
“As a lot of you realize, Mike beforehand spent greater than 20 years at Microsoft. Now that he has seen the acquisition by means of as Blizzard’s president, he has determined to go away the corporate,” in accordance with Matt Booty, Microsoft’s recreation content material and studios president.
Microsoft is anticipated to call a brand new president of its Activision unit subsequent week.
Allen Adham, the chief design officer of Activision, can also be departing, in accordance with the corporate.
A number of different huge corporations together with Alphabet, Amazon and eBay have additionally laid off hundreds of workers in latest weeks to decrease prices and increase profitability.
General, greater than 21,000 staff have been let go throughout 76 tech corporations in January, in accordance with monitoring web site Layoffs.fyi.
The tech sector shed 168,032 jobs in 2023 and accounted for the best variety of layoffs throughout industries, in accordance with a report by Challenger, Grey and Christmas earlier this month.
That included greater than 10,000 cuts at Microsoft.
With Publish Wires
