Unity has laid off hundreds of employees in its offices across the globe, according to Kotaku. The video game software development company known for its popular game engine has reportedly let around 300 to 400 staffers go so far. Layoffs are still ongoing, sources said, so those numbers may be higher by the time the company is done. Unity has confirmed to Engadget that it's "realigning some of [its] resources," which has led to the dismissal of approximately 4 percent of its entire workforce. That's consistent with the report that it has let around 300 people go, since its LinkedIn page lists 8,048 employees.
The company told Engadget:
"As part of a continued planning process where we regularly assess our resourcing levels against our company priorities, we decided to realign some of our resources to better drive focus and support our long-term growth. This resulted in some hard decisions that impacted approximately 4% of all Unity workforce. We are grateful for the contributions of those leaving Unity and we are supporting them through this difficult transition."
While the mass dismissal affects Unity's entire workforce, Kotaku said it's mostly concentrated on its AI and engineering divisions. On Blind, the anonymous messaging board used by workers in the tech industry, posters claiming to be former Unity employees said they were asked to hop on a Zoom call with a manager and an HR personnel. They lost access to their company Slack and email and had to surrender their laptops within 48 hours, but they were apparently given 30 days to find a new role within the company. According to Kotaku, giving them 30 days to find a new role wouldn't help because the company has instituted a hiring freeze, but Unity told us that's not true at all.
One of the publication's sources said there's a lot going on within Unity at the moment, including mismanagement and "strategic pivots at a rapid, unpredictable rate." Whatever the reason is for its reorganization, Unity's layoffs are just the latest in a string of job cuts across the tech industry. Niantic also recently laid off around 90 employees, or 8 percent of its workforce, to streamline its operations. Meanwhile, Netflix's latest round of job cuts due to slowing revenue growth had affected 300 staff members.