Final week, Lockwood Publishing introduced the layoffs of 15 per cent of its workforce.
In a Slack message on Thursday, CEO Halli Bjornsson wrote “We can be placing 34 roles susceptible to redundancy, and we suggest to make 29 roles redundant.” An additional Slack message obtained by thegamer.com acknowledged that affected workers could be contacted by finish of day Friday on the newest, though to date no additional information – together with the exact variety of workers made redundant – have emerged.
Final yr, the corporate laid off 10 per cent of its workforce, in a transfer which the Unbiased Employee’s Union of Nice Britain (IWGB) accused of breaching employment legal guidelines as a result of a scarcity of session with workers and transparency, attracting the eye of Labour MP for Nottingham, Nadia Whittome.
Lockwood denied these allegations, with a spokesperson for the corporate stating “Whereas we settle for that we will all the time do higher in the way in which we talk change, we reject any suggestion that we breached employment regulation over the last restructure in 2021.”
Employees had been allegedly assured that no additional redundancies would happen, nonetheless, Lockwood have claimed that the current conflict in Ukraine has been an element within the determination to put off extra workers.
The most recent spherical of layoffs has led to harsh criticism of Bjornsson. One worker claims that he takes residence a six determine wage, which is in step with the $360 thousand reported in 2021 – a determine that Lockwood has disputed.
“If he actually wished to economize, he’d do the honourable factor and take a voluntary pay minimize like an honest CEO does,” the worker instructed TheGamer.
One ex-employee states that Bjornsson’s excessive wage was a difficulty throughout their time with the corporate, stating “We particularly known as that out in a number of of our conferences with management, however received fairly a hostile response.”
Bjornsson has confronted accusations of nepotism and poor management for the reason that first spherical of layoffs, with nameless sources claiming that Bjornsson has a historical past of hiring “sure males with no expertise”, and that a number of workers who fought administration have misplaced their jobs.
In March, Lockwood opened a brand new workplace in Cambridge and expanded its improvement hub.
