Study finds 21 percent of European devs laid off in past year

According this year's Big Games Industry Employment Survey, 21 percent of game developers in Europe have been impacted by layoffs between 2023 and 2024.

Participants were asked if they had changed jobs in the last year: of those, 15 percent they were laid off and found a new job, and 6.2 percent were similarly made redundant, and are still looking for work. Others have either remained employed (55.6 percent) or left of their own choice (23.2 percent).

The most affected by these layoffs worked in HR (by 32 percent) and QA (28 percent). Many employees in both fields ended up switching to another field or leaving games entirely.

Most European devs that've been laid off in the past year have managed to find new jobs elsewhere.

Those surveyed also said they felt the three most at-risk jobs were localization, sound, and art/design. PR, founder/co-founder, and community were considered the least likely to be at risk. Tenure-wise, trainees and junior staff are the most at-risk workers, according to the results.

Ten percent of respondents said they ended up switching to work at non-games industries, and 31 percent of those were former junior staff at a game company.

Layoffs have hit studios across the globe quite hard in recent years. Teams based in the UK or France (like NaturalMotion or Sharkmob) must first enter consultation periods before eliminating roles, but losing staff can be a blow to morale or elicit stress or feelings of burnout.

In the survey, 55 percent of developers based in European Union countries (including the UK and Switzerland) cited professional burnout as a major issue at their workplace, followed by "unprofessional management" (51 percent) and a lack of appreciation (38 percent). Workers outside those territories had similar sentiments: 61 percent pointed to burnout, then management (47 percent), and a lack of appreciation (24 percent).

The big challenges developers in and out of Europe are currently facing at their workplace.

Another big challenge concerns discrimination: 32 percent of respondents say they have encountered gender discrimination, followed by discrimination of age (26 percent), and national origin or language (17 percent).

The full Big Games Industry Employment Survey, which also includes insight into salaries for European developers and the most-desired studios to work at, can be read here.