Last week, Lockwood Publishing introduced the layoffs of 15 per cent of its workforce.
In a Slack message on Thursday, CEO Halli Bjornsson wrote “We will be putting 34 roles at risk of redundancy, and we propose to make 29 roles redundant.” An extra Slack message obtained by thegamer.com said that affected workers could be contacted by finish of day Friday on the newest, though so far no additional information – together with the exact variety of workers made redundant – have emerged.
Last 12 months, the corporate laid off 10 per cent of its workforce, in a transfer which the Independent Worker’s Union of Great Britain (IWGB) accused of breaching employment legal guidelines on account 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 “While we settle for that we will at all times do higher in the best way we talk change, we reject any suggestion that we breached employment legislation over the last restructure in 2021.”
Staff had been allegedly assured that no additional redundancies would happen, nonetheless, Lockwood have claimed that the latest battle in Ukraine has been an element within the choice to put off further workers.
The newest spherical of layoffs has led to harsh criticism of Bjornsson. One worker claims that he takes dwelling a six determine wage, which is in keeping with the $360 thousand reported in 2021 – a determine that Lockwood has disputed.
“If he actually wished to save cash, 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 referred to as that out in a number of of our conferences with management, however obtained 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 staff who fought administration have misplaced their jobs.
In March, Lockwood opened a brand new workplace in Cambridge and expanded its improvement hub.
