As games industry recruiters, we're very conscious of the redundancies and layoffs of the past year and how difficult it has been for employees and studios. For this reason, we wanted to delve into who these redundancies affected and the most common reasons for them. To do this, we made sure to add a section to our annual Games & Interactive Salary and Satisfaction that focuses entirely on industry redundancies (read the full report here).
This mini-report delves deeper into one of the most interesting statistics to come out of the industry redundancy section of our 2024 Games & Interactive Salary and Satisfaction Report.
Our 10th Annual report found that:
What makes this particularly interesting is that:
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This means some people have not been directly affected by redundancies and are still considering leaving the industry because of the layoffs.
Below we will delve into who those 24% are, and what it reflects for the games and interactive industries...
Redundancies within the 24%
First up, we're looking at how many of the 24% that are considering leaving the industry due to redundancies, are also included in the 21% who were made redundant in the last 12 months. And of those who were, have they been successful in finding a new role in the industry?
We can see from the above graphs that the majority of the 24% were not made redundant, meaning that those who have so far been unaffected, still have concerns. To break this down further, we looked into the 63.3% that were not made redundant, as some respondents work at studios which have had redundancies, and some at completely unaffected studios...
The above graph demonstrates that although not made redundant, 55.6% have witnessed redundancies within their studio, making them more likely to be anxious about their job security within the industry. Leaving 44.4% working in studios that haven't had any redundancies, the industry as a whole may have caused them concerns about their job security.
Where do they work?
Next, we wondered what size studios those considering leaving the industry worked in, as it could highlight if it's the smaller or larger studios people are more concerned with. As well as the time they have worked at their current company, and how this reflects in their considerations.
Interestingly, it is those working at larger companies who are the most interested in leaving the industry due to redundancies, and those at the smallest companies who are the least interested. However, to some extent, this is a reflection of the number of respondents from those size companies.
In terms of the time at the current company, this has similar statistics to the people who have been made redundant, which you can see in our full report here. Unsurprisingly those who have been at their current companies longest are the least interested in leaving the industry, but the main difference is the respondents who have worked at their current company for 2-4 years have the highest percentage, despite it being the less than 12 months area that has had the most redundancies.
The areas of work within the 24% that said they would consider leaving the industry due to redundancies are:
Interestingly, despite design and art having equal amounts of redundancies at approximately 17%, those in design have been more put off and are more interested in leaving the industry than those working in art. This could be a reflection of how easily their skills can be transferred into another industry.
How far into their careers are they?
Next, we looked into where those who are considering leaving the industry are in their careers, as we know those who have been at their current company for less than two years are the majority of the 24%, but we do not know how long they have been in the industry.
The above graphs show some quite surprising statistics. The statistics of the time in the industry, very closely replicate the number of respondents as seen in the demographics section of our report, meaning that the respondents to the survey at every stage in their career had a similar percentage of them considering leaving the industry due to redundancies.
This is also true for seniority, with those in higher-up positions having a slightly higher percentage than they had in the demographics, the graphs compared to the overall respondents show a surprisingly even split across all seniorities and time in the industry of those considering leaving the industry due to redundancies despite those being affected by redundancies so far being majority those in the industry for 2 years or less.
Job security
The next thing to consider is how secure those considering leaving the industry are in their current roles (this question was posed to those who responded saying they would consider leaving but have not been made redundant in the past 12 months).
Unsurprisingly, those who are very insecure/insecure take up the majority here, what is interesting is that those who feel secure/very secure make up over 25% of respondents. This means that despite feeling secure in their roles, they are still being put off from staying in the industry by the redundancy-heavy climate we have been seeing.
So how many of these people are considering job hunting in 2024?
Those considering leaving the industry due to redundancies are more likely to be job hunting in 2024. 70% of global respondents will be or are considering job hunting in 2024 compared to approximately 87% here. What we don't know is whether those 87% will be looking for new roles in the games industry, or following through with their considerations and looking for new roles elsewhere.
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If you have any questions about the data or would like to find out more, we’re on hand to help!
Fill out our survey feedback form here and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.
If you’re hungry for more games industry data, check out our full 2024 report here.
*it is possible that these statistics are a reflection of the cohort of this year’s survey and not an exact depiction of the entire industry.
**Data collected from November 2023 to January 2024
