Microsoft will be letting go of 1,900 staff in the gaming division after completing its $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
CEO of Microsoft Gaming, Phil Spencer released an internal memo stating the layoffs will affect staff at Xbox, Activision Blizzard, and ZeniMax.
The layoffs will amount to around 8% of the division.
In the memo, it stated Spencer and his team have “identified areas of overlap” since the acquisition of Activision Blizzard and its approximately 13,000 employees last year.
“As part of this process, we have made the painful decision to reduce the size of our gaming workforce by approximately 1,900 roles out of the 22,000 people on our team.”
President of Blizzard Entertainment, Mike Ybarra will also leave the company.
“As many of you know, Mike previously spent more than 20 years at Microsoft. Now that he has seen the acquisition through as Blizzard’s president, he has decided to leave the company.”
A new president is expected to be named next week.
Also departing the company is Activision Chief Design Officer, Allen Adham.
Other large firms have cut thousands of jobs recently in order to lower costs, and boost profitability. Some of these other firms include Alphabet, Amazon, and eBay.
Over 21,000 staff across 76 tech firms have lost jobs this January.
In the technology sector, 168,032 jobs were cut last year, accounting for the largest number of layoffs across industries. This included over 10,000 at Microsoft.
