Sega of America plans to lay off 61 employees after union controversy
It looks like Sega Europe isn’t the only branch of the company looking to cut costs: Sega of America plans to lay off 61 employees according to the Californian WARN system, which provides a 60-day notice to any workers affected by layoffs.
While many companies in the games industry are trimming their workforce at the moment, these layoffs at Sega of America have a bit of a different quality to them due to some special context. In 2023, around 200 workers at Sega of America formed a union to better represent them – a move the company didn’t exactly greet with open arms. According to employees, the company reacted to this by forcing them into a general meeting, where it announced that it would rather move their roles to Japan and Europe instead of negotiating with the union.
Sega is adding numbers to the layoff tally.
Sega
Detailed plans for this offshoring move, which the workers said was nothing but retaliatory, got made public in November 2023 and revolved around laying off temporary employees (a significant part of which had joined the union) by February 2024 – and here we are, almost perfectly on the clock.
The one ray of positivity in this whole affair is that “only” 61 jobs are being culled instead of the initially envisioned 80. The union claimed responsibility for saving some of these roles as well as successfully fighting for the workers designated to lose their positions to get severance pay.
These layoffs come at the end of a month that’s been devastating for the games industry: Almost as many people have lost their jobs in these four weeks as in all of 2023 combined. Companies like Eidos Montreal, Microsoft, and Riot Games are among those who’ve announced massive layoffs in the previous days.
