Microsoft has announced that it will be laying off around 3 percent of its employees across all departments, teams, and regions. According to a report by CNBC, this round of layoffs will affect around 6,000 employees from the various teams across Microsoft. Considering the far-reaching net cast by these layoffs, it is likely that employees from various game development studios under the Microsoft umbrella will also be affected to some extent.
“We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace,” said a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement, who also said that one of the reasons for the layoffs was so that Microsoft could cut down on some of its layers of management.
Microsoft hasn’t yet confirmed which of its teams is being hit by these layoffs, or whether its efforts to remove some of the layers of management across its divisions will also affect game development studios.
This announcement of Microsoft is only the most recent round of layoffs that is hitting the games industry this year. Earlier this month, racing game developer Codemasters had announced a round of layoffs which it described as being done for the sake of “eliminating roles.” The announcement came alongside the fact that development on EA Sports WRC was ending, and work on future rally racing games was being paused.
“As a business, we are constantly evolving to meet the growing needs of our players and driving greater focus across our portfolio,” a Codemasters spokesperson said. “This has led us to look at reducing some roles, while we redeploy as many as possible against our strategic priorities.”
Back in April, EA had announced a round of layoffs affecting 300 employees across multiple teams, including Apex Legends and Star Wars Jedi developer Respawn Entertainment. In its statement announcing the layoffs, an EA spokesperson said that the decision was being made in order to “align teams and allocate resources in service of driving future growth.”
