The year 2024 is not starting well at all. The layoff reports are piling up and after Twitch and Unity, Discord is now also putting a not insignificant part of the workforce on the street.
And the cheerful dismissal continues. After Twitch and Unity have already swung the broom hard, Discord is now joining the dismissal club. A whopping 17 percent of the workforce, a total of 170 people, are put on the streets. This was announced in an internal memo from CEO Jason Citron.
The reasoning states: “We have grown quickly and increased our workforce even faster, fivefold since 2020. As a result, we took on more projects and our way of working became less efficient. Today we are increasingly aware of this “We need to sharpen our focus and improve our collaboration to make our organization more agile. This was the main reason for the decision to downsize our workforce.”
At least those laid off are not left empty-handed, at least for the time being. As severance pay, Discord will pay five months’ salary plus one additional week for each full year at Discord. Social benefits will continue to be covered for five months and there will be continued access to modern health until the end of 2024. However, this is likely to be little consolation.
The wave of layoffs in the gaming and tech sectors continues. As already reported, Twitch and Unity have already tightened their belts and also Google has thrown several hundred employees from various areas of the company out onto the streets.
