Unity is undergoing yet another layoff, and this time it’s going to touch about 25 percent of its entire workforce, or around 1,800 employees. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company, which makes the famous game engine Unity, said it’s making the cuts “as it restructures and refocuses on its core business, and to position itself for long-term and profitable growth.”
Unity has been through several rounds of layoffs within the past year, with the most recent one hitting 265 workers last November. However, it’s still not clear whether Unity is cutting 1,800 extra workers on top of the layoffs it announced last year. We’ve reached out to Unity for explanation.
Last year’s layoffs came just weeks after the company made changes to Unity’s pricing plan that frustrated developers. Unity ended up walking back parts of the new policy as a result, while former CEO John Riccitiello left.
“Today, as part of our company reset outlined in our Shareholder Letter on November 9, 2023, we announced that Unity has made the difficult decision to implement a workforce reduction, targeting approximately 25% of our total workforce across all teams,” Kelly Ekins, Unity’s director of PR, says in a statement to The Verge. “This decision was not taken lightly, and we extend our deepest gratitude to those affected for their dedication and contributions.”
Unity, which is utilized by popular games like Fall Guys and Pokémon Go, is just one of the big gaming companies that have been hit with layoffs over the past year. Epic Games, EA, Naughty Dog, and many more developers have issued job cuts affecting more than 9,000 people in the business in 2023.