Ubisoft has made around 60 people have redundant across its offices, in yet another round of tech sector job cuts.
It’s a story that has become all too familiar in 2023. So far this year, nearly 170,000 jobs have been cut across the tech sector, and the layoffs just keep coming.
Even though the video-game industry has historically proven to be more ‘recession-proof’ than the rest of the tech sector, we’ve still seen waves of game industry job cuts in 2023. Hundreds of layoffs have been announced at Halo maker 343 Industries, Electronic Arts, Unity, and others, and now Ubisoft is joining in.
The French publisher has announced in a statement that 60 people will be laid off at Ubisoft’s offices in Cary, North Carolina, and Newcastle in the UK, with the cuts seemingly affecting the customer services department. The Ubisoft statement, shared by Kotaku reporter Ethan Gach, reads:
“Ubisoft’s Customer Relation Center team is evolving its organization to focus on where we can have a significant impact while remaining steadfast in our commitment to consistently support our players anywhere in the world. We estimate that, due to organizational changes, 60 team members from our offices in Cary, North Carolina in the US and Newcastle in the UK could be impacted.”
There have been signs that all is not well at Ubisoft for a while now. The publisher cancelled three unannounced games and lowered its projected sales for the year back in January, and announced a reorganisation of its businesses in March. Over the past several years, reports of sexual harassment and a toxic work culture have been emerging from some of Ubisoft’s studios, leading to the departure of many department heads and team leaders.
The job cuts seemingly came out of the blue, according to one employee. In North Carolina, game composer and Ubisoft customer support representative Matthew Harnage tweeted: “I just got let go from my job at Ubisoft in a massive layoff out of nowhere. With no indication or preparation.”
I just got let go from my job at Ubisoft in a massive layoff out of nowhere. With no indication or preparation.
I really just don't know how to feel. If anyone has any job leads on game audio stuff, or just game tech stuff let me know. I'm in a weird place rn lol
— Matthew Harnage (@matthewharnage) May 10, 2023
Here’s hoping those 60 people affected find new positions soon.
