In a latest announcement on Thursday, Microsoft said that it will let go of 1,900 employees at Activision Blizzard and Xbox this week.
Microsoft Declared Massive Layoffs
Microsoft seems to be laying off about 1,900 employees in its gaming division, as per an internal memo in the company.
It’s been over three months since the tech giant completed its $69 billion purchase of video game maker Activision Blizzard in Santa Monica.
This latest layoffs in the technology sector seems to be the massive layoffs which have extended over the past years into 2024.
These layoffs almost represent a 8% cut of the overall Microsoft Gaming division as it is anticipate to mostly happen at Activision Blizzard.
The job cuts will mostly impact the people working on teams for Activision Blizzard as well as Xbox and ZeniMax owned by Microsoft.
In a previous announcement, Microsoft said that the survival game by Blizzard has been canceled.
Besides this, Blizzard President Mike Ybarra and Chief Design Officer Allen Adham are also leaving the company.
An Eye Opener For The Employees
The news of these layoffs comes months after Microsoft closed its $69 billion deal with Activision Blizzard.
Then the technology giant boosted its heft in the video gaming market best-selling titles which includes “Call of Duty”, to better compete with industry leaders such as Sony.
While talking on this subject, Communications Workers of America said, “Microsoft’s announcement that it will be laying off 1,900 video game workers makes clear that, even when you work at a successful company in an extremely profitable industry, your livelihood is not protected without a voice on the job.”
Further adding, “We will continue to support workers at Microsoft and across the game industry who want to have a union voice on the job.”
Expecting A Better Year
Microsoft is not the only one, several other big firms including Alphabet, Amazon.com and ebay have also laid off thousands of their employees in recent times in order to minimize the costs and increase profitability.
During 2023, the tech sector trimmed 168,032 jobs further accounting for the number of layoffs across industries, as per a recent report by Chal Gray and Christmas earlier this month.
These job cuts included more than 10000 cuts in Microsoft.
This year, the story should be a little bit different as the analysts and industry experts expect fewer layoffs this year.
The IT firms are in a hurry to catch up in the AI space are now anticipated to downsize as they will try to offset the billions of dollars they are spending on the technology.
