EA lays off 350 employees

EA is the latest major video game publisher hit with layoffs, despite three consecutive years of profit growth.

The company announced today that it is laying off 350 employees. That represents 4% of the company’s workforce. According to Polygon, the layoffs mostly hit marketing, publishing, and operations roles.

The cuts come despite three years of growth in the company’s annual revenue and gross profit. Electronic Arts’ gross profit for the twelve months ending December 31, 2018, was just over $4 billion, a 4.31% year-over-year increase.

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“Today we took some important steps as a company to address our challenges and prepare for the opportunities ahead,” EA’s CEO, Andrew Wilson, said in a statement posted on the company’s website. He says that the layoffs are needed to “refine our organization and meet the needs of our players.”

The news is just the latest in a string of layoffs in the industry. Activision Blizzard announced 800 layoffs in February, despite record company profits during its 2018 fiscal year. TellTale Games abruptly shut its doors late last year, laying off nearly its entire workforce without severance pay.

This latest round of layoffs may lead more professionals in the industry to consider joining the push for unionization. After Activision’s layoffs, the AFL-CIO – one of the largest unions in the United States – released an open letter that was published on Kotaku.

“This is a moment for change,” AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer Liz Shuler wrote in February. “It won’t come from CEOs. It won’t come from corporate boards. And, it won’t come from any one person.”

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