Blizzard has laid off 209 employees across its US-based offices, with the highest number of layoffs hitting IT and marketing departments. A recent Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) filing in California breaks down the jobs that have been cut as part of Activision-Blizzard’s eight percent employee reduction announced in February.
PC Games Insider obtained a copy of the filing and provide a by-the-numbers breakdown of job cuts by office. According to their reporting, the filing lists 41 IT-related jobs that have been cut across Blizzard’s US locations, with another 29 layoffs hitting marketing departments in Blizzard’s offices in Irvine, California and Austin, Texas. Another 29 employees have been laid off from Blizzard’s Live Experiences team.
The cuts have also hitting Blizzard’s human resources departments in Irvine and Austin, which have laid off 18 employees between them, while 15 more workers have been let go from the Global Insights team in Irvine. PC Games Insider details the rest of the job cuts, which include positions in publishing, finance and commercial teams, Battle.net, facilities, and web & mobile departments.
The 209 positions listed in the WARN filing are only part of the some 800 jobs that will be eliminated thanks to Activision-Blizzard’s restructuring, which comes after what CEO Bobby Kotick called a “record year” during an earnings call earlier this year. Since then, the company has observed that the mass layoffs “could negatively impact” its business by hurting employee morale and making it more difficult to retain talent.
The layoffs have hit Activision-Blizzard’s subsidiaries, including mobile games giant and Candy Crush developer King, which is closing its San Francisco office. Blizzard is also laying off employees in its overseas offices, including major cuts to offices in Ireland, Mexico, and France.
