Sega of America is laying off 61 employees in March 2024, a new California Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) has revealed. As first spotted by What Layoff, a Twitter / X account tracking layoffs across the globe, the WARN was filed to pave the way for sweeping layoffs impacting around 10% of the company’s workforce.
So far, Sega of America has yet to confirm the layoffs, however the Allied Employees Guild Improving Sega has taken to Twitter / X to detail a union negotiation process around the layoffs.
“A few months ago, Sega management announced their plan to outsource QA and part of localisation in a move that would significantly impact our workforce,” the union said. “We’ve been fighting back on these terms since then, but today the layoff that will result in the loss of 61 jobs across these two departments was made public.”
Read: Sega of America accused of violating union bargaining rules
“Through our union efforts, we’ve been able to more than double the number of saved jobs, and to offer severance to our temp workers. This, however, does not take away from the fact that many of our coworkers are being laid off in a decision we believe will have a negative impact on the working conditions of those who remain with the company, and in the quality of our future games.”
“In spite of this, we remain committed to fighting for our coworkers, and for the betterment of our industry. In the face of mass layoffs that continue to happen across gaming companies, we stand united and in solidarity with those affected.”
For now, the reason for the layoffs at Sega of America is unclear – although they follow a tide of recent, similar redundancies at other gaming and tech companies around the world. Already in 2024, we’ve seen companies including Microsoft, Unity, Twitch, Discord, Behaviour Interactive, and CI Games initiate sweeping job cuts. Unfortunately, these layoffs are likely to continue over the coming months.
Our thoughts are with those impacted by the layoffs at Sega of America.
