“Call of Duty” makers affected
Microsoft is laying off almost 2,000 employees
January 25, 2024, 8:42 p.m
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After Amazon and Google, a wave of layoffs also followed at Microsoft. The layoffs will probably primarily affect employees in one division of the billion-dollar company.
A few months after the billion-dollar takeover of Activision Blizzard, according to a media report, Microsoft is turning the corner on its video games division. Around 1,900 jobs would be cut, wrote the news portal “The Verge,” which specializes in technology topics, citing an internal circular. This corresponds to eight percent of the workforce in this business area.
Employees of “Call of Duty” maker Activision are particularly affected. But some of the “Xbox” video game console division would also have to go. In addition, Activision boss Mike Ybarra and chief designer Allen Adham left the company. Microsoft declined to comment on the matter.
According to the website Layoffs.fyi, technology companies have cut almost 24,000 jobs since the beginning of the year alone. In 2023 as a whole there were more than 260,000. Amazon recently announced that it would lay off hundreds of employees in its Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios divisions, continuing its recent job cuts. At the Amazon live streaming unit Twitch, 500 jobs will be cut, which corresponds to around 35 percent of the people employed there. The video game software provider Unity had announced a reduction of 25 percent of jobs, affecting 1,800 people. And Google also wants to cut hundreds of jobs in various areas of the company.
The US software company Microsoft is currently the second company after Apple to break the three trillion dollar mark in terms of market value. On Wednesday, its competitor Apple was just ahead in the ranking of the most valuable companies with a market capitalization of $3.02 trillion. Thanks to its early investments in the ChatGPT manufacturer Open AI, Microsoft is currently benefiting more than other tech companies from the boom in artificial intelligence. Since ChatGPT was introduced in November 2022, Microsoft shares have increased by 67 percent.