Unity Software to lay off nearly 300 employees
The Wall Street Journal reports that software developer Unity plans to lay off 284 employees.
Unity said that some of the layoffs were brought on by weak economic trends, and others were done in response to its recent acquisition of IronSource in November 2022, and a desire to streamline the company's efforts. Prior to this new string of layoffs, Unity had over 8,000 employees.
CEO John Riccitiello told the Wall Street Journal the company was "dealing very specifically with overlap and a handful of projects are going in the closet."
Most of the "streamlining" applies to administration positions, but it's also resulted in the loss of Unity's sports and live entertainment division. That division was experimenting with technology to watch live and recorded sports games from any angle, but Riccitiello said that it "wasn't a good time" to bring that technology into the market.
“We reassessed our objectives, strategies, goals and priorities in light of the current economic conditions,” he continued. "While we remain focused on the same vision, we decided that we need to be more selective in our investments to come out stronger as a company.”
Unity previously laid off hundreds of employees in June 2022, after Riccitiello previously said that no layoffs would occur.
More broadly, it also continues the string of layoffs at tech companies late last year at Amazon and Microsoft.
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