Rumor: EA to lay off 500 to 1000 employees
updated 05:00 pm EDT, Mon April 16, 2012
Electronic Arts in mass layoffs rumor
Electronic Arts is allegedly in the process of laying off hundreds of employees after the completion of several big-name games. According to Startup Grind, the game publisher stands to lose between 500 and 1000 people (5-11% of its workforce) in the near future.
The rumor, confirmed by multiple sources within EA, claimed that the process has been postponed from the original date of April 9, but will be acted on soon. The layoffs come after the completion of major titles from the publisher, such as Battlefield 3 and Star Wars: The Old Republic, and could be seen as standard employment practice in the games industry.
EA denied the layoffs, commenting to MCV “There are no lay-offs as such, we always have projects growing and morphing” and to Joystiq “Like all game companies, we make occasional adjustments to resize teams as projects are completed and new priorities are established. Overall, we expect that headcount will be up at the end of this year.”
