Billion-dollar sports publisher Electronic Arts is laying off hundreds more workers in rigorous restructuring plan.
EA has announced that it will lay off 5% of its workforce, or about 670 people. This is the second round of layoffs that EA has announced during this fiscal year, and the publisher plans to have shed 11% of workers by March 2025.
First round of layoffs - In March 2023, EA said that it would reduce staff by 6%. As of the same month, EA had 13,400 employees. The first round of layoffs would reduce the workforce by 804 people and bring total employee count down to 12,596. A month before that, EA laid off 200 QA workers, some of which were under contract.
The second of round of layoffs will affect 5% of people, which assumed to be based on the total 13,400 employee count. It's unknown how far along the first round of layoffs was before EA announced the second, and based on the messaging in both announcements, there will be overlap as both rounds are expected to be concluded by Q1 FY25.
"In this time of change, we expect these decisions to impact approximately 5 percent of our workforce," EA CEO Andrew Wilson said in the announcement, further discussing EA's need to move away from franchised content that isn't owned by the publisher.
"While not every team will be impacted...Communicating these impacts has already begun and will be largely completed by early next quarter."