Activision Blizzard, a company of more than 9,000 employees who’ve built some of the world’s most popular games, is a few things. They are a company who bragged about having a “record year,” on an earnings call this afternoon, a quarter where only raking in $2.4 billion in revenue was considered a disappointment. They are a company who granted a $15 million signing bonus and a $900,000 salary to a high-ranking executive who joined last month. And they are a company who just laid off around 800 employees, or 8% (!!!) of its total workers.
800 people will be without jobs at the end of the day. 800 people head into an uncertain future, wondering how long their severance and health insurance will get them before the next job.
Eric Bailey’s “Blizzard Gives Employees Box With 8.3% Chance of Containing Pink Slip” for The Hard Times:
After a recent earnings report announced record revenue, Activision-Blizzard initiated layoffs by handing out boxes to its 9,600 employees that had 8.3% odds of containing employment termination paperwork.
“A lot of companies might just hand out pink slips to a select few, but our ‘layoff boxes’ allow every employee to be part of the overall firing experience,” said Blizzard human resources manager Clint Bullock. “Our employees have all worked hard to make our company so successful over the past few years, so it’s only fair that everybody have an equal chance of having their lives totally upended while we keep making huge profits off their creations.”
Unionization in today’s companies and employee-ownership of new businesses would help prevent mass layoffs.
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