This year has been wrought with tech company layoffs, and for the third time this year Unity Software is cutting hundreds of jobs all at once.
Back in January 2023, Unity Software pulled the plug on approximately 300 jobs in their second round of layoffs, and today they’ve decided to double it. The software company has decided to cut ~600 more jobs from its workforce, depleting their overall employee number by another 8% the WSJ reports. This latest report continues the trend of tech company layoffs in the industry following IDW, Disney and even Take Two reporting record layoffs for 2023.
Chief Executive Officer John Riccitiello said “It’s all about setting ourselves up for higher growth,” in an interview regarding the layoffs, with “It was clear we had too many layers.” The WSJ also reports Riccitiello said “the goal is to streamline operations and improve the company’s top and bottom lines.” This comes with the notion that Unity is amidst a restructuring that aims to focus on having more employees and fewer managers the report suggests.
The WSJ report also cites ‘working from home’ as a potential reason for layoffs. Riccitiello continues with “It’s a lot harder to make something together with 10 to 20 people if everyone’s on Zoom,” in this instance. Currently, there are no announced plans for Unity Software to hit its workforce with another round of layoffs after this one, but nothing appears to be off the table.
According to Google Finance, the common stock price of Unity Software Inc has decreased a huge amount over the month of April, seeing the price deflate from over $32 to the current $25 price. It remains to be seen as to whether layoffs will improve the stock price, but Take Two has seen its price increase drastically since the March layoffs, increasing by approximately 15% to this day.
