Microsoft is laying off about 1,900 employees in its gaming division, just weeks after completing its $69 billion acquisition of video game giant Activision Blizzard.
Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer distributed a memo to employees saying the layoffs, which amount to about 8% of the division, will affect staff at Xbox, Activision Blizzard and ZeniMax.
Memo was first It was obtained by the news site “The Verge”.
Spencer wrote in the memo that he and his team have “identified areas of overlap” since the software giant absorbed Activision Blizzard and its approximately 13,000 employees last year.
“As part of this process, we made the difficult decision to reduce the size of our gaming workforce by approximately 1,900 roles out of the team's 22,000 people,” the memo said.
Activision Blizzard President Mike Ybarra is leaving the company as part of a reorganization.
“As many of you may know, Mike previously worked at Microsoft for more than 20 years,” said Matt Booty, Microsoft's president of game content and studios. After seeing it through to the end, I decided to leave the company.”
Microsoft plans to name a new president of its Activision division next week.
According to the company, Activision's chief design officer, Allen Adham, will also be leaving the company.
Several other major companies, including Alphabet, Amazon and eBay, have also laid off thousands of employees in recent weeks to cut costs and improve profitability.
Overall, more than 21,000 workers were laid off at 76 tech companies in January, according to tracking website Layoffs.fyi.
The tech industry cut 168,032 jobs in 2023, accounting for the highest number of layoffs across industries, according to a report from Challenger, Gray and Christmas earlier this month.
This includes more than 10,000 job cuts at Microsoft.
with post wire
