Today, the current Sony Interactive Entertainment President Jim Ryan has announced PlayStation layoffs and 900 jobs worldwide — amounting to 8% of its total workforce — have been slashed.
The Sony Blog unleashed a bombshell today, as SIE President Jim Ryan has put out a blog post that announces another round of tech industry job cuts, and this time, the PlayStation layoffs number in at 900. Jim Ryan writes, “We have made the extremely hard decision to announce our plan to commence a reduction of our overall headcount globally by about 8% or about 900 people, subject to local law and consultation processes. Employees across the globe, including our studios, are impacted.” This includes the entire shuttering of the PlayStation London team, who just took a photo five days ago on X (formerly Twitter), saying farewell to Jim Ryan. That post can be seen below.
That same employee who posted the photo with Jim Ryan and was directly affected by this round of PlayStation layoffs posted again today with, “I have nothing to say. I’m in tears. I am looking for a new job I guess so please reach out. I’m numb and once settled I may have more to say.” Sadly, this is not the first round of layoffs for 2024, and it likely will not be the last, considering Microsoft, Embracer, Riot, Thunderful, Twitch, and others have already announced thousands of layoffs this year, and it is only February.
As companies continue to hamstring their workforce, the gaming industry is reminded of the legendary Satoru Iwata, the CEO of Nintendo, who famously slashed his salary in 2011, and again in 2014 to stave off employee layoffs and keep morale high for a company on the ropes following the losses gathered by the Wii U.What’s interesting is there have been so many layoffs (outside of this round of PlayStation layoffs) that developer Farhan Noor has started a website to track all of the industry layoffs since the beginning of 2023, and it paints a bleak picture.
However, Jim Ryan states regarding this round of PlayStation layoffs, “This will not be easy, and I am aware of the impact it will have on wellbeing. Affected employees will receive support, including severance benefits. While these are challenging times, it is not indicative of a lack of strength of our company, our brand, or our industry.” It’s worth mentioning PlayStation’s Jim Ryan, who has announced his retirement to take effect in March of this year (next month), is the person who announced these layoffs.
Readers looking for more information can head over to the Sony Blog for the full letter.
