American video game firm, Activision is laying off more than 700 workers after the company's earnings were announced this week. CEO Bobby Kotick explained that the move resulted from low profits and attempt at reducing administrative costs within the company.
According to Bloomberg, the dismissal of eight percent of its employees is equivalent to several hundred as Activision had 9,800 people in its workforce. The layoffs are also part of the current restructuring scheme to centralize functions and increasing the company's earnings.
"While our financial results for 2018 were the best in our history, we didn't realize our full potential, and to help us reach our full potential, we have made a number of important leadership changes," Kotick stated in a press release (via Business Wire). "These changes should enable us to achieve the many opportunities our industry affords us, especially with our powerful owned franchises, our strong commercial capabilities, our direct digital connections to hundreds of millions of players, and our extraordinarily talented employees."
The employees who will be affected by Activision Blizzard's decision to remove some of its workers are those who were in non-game-development and this includes the administration and publishing departments in Activision, Blizzard, and King. It was added that one of the company's studios located in Seattle, with 78 workers, was already ordered to close the office.
Furthermore, Kotaku was able to get the letter that was sent to the employees coming from Blizzard president J. Allen Brack. In the note, he explained why the company is cutting jobs and apologized why this has to happen.
"Over the last few years, many of our non-development teams expanded to support various needs," part of Brack's letter reads. "Currently staffing levels on some teams are out of proportion with our current release slate. This means we need to scale down some areas of our organization.
He then apologized by saying, "I'm sorry to share that we will be parting ways with some of our colleagues in the U.S. today."
Meanwhile, Brack promised that all the employees who will be affected by the dismissals would get a comprehensive severance package. Apart from this, they will be eligible to avail career coaching, health benefits, job placement assistance and most importantly, profit-sharing bonuses for the previous year. The president of Blizzard also stated that they are doing their best to provide whatever support they can extend to their colleagues who will lose their jobs.
