Roblox lays off around 30 employees in its recruitment team

Online game creation platform Roblox has let go of approximately 30 staff members in its talent acquisition department as it slows its hiring.

The details:

• Roblox confirmed the layoffs in a statement to Techcrunch, revealing that the employees were let go on Monday, September 25 as the company adjusted its hiring needs. “The aggressive growth targets Roblox was operating against in the past few years required a heavier investment in our TA organization,” said a Roblox spokesperson. “With our commitment to getting our cash compensation growth in line with our bookings growth by the end of Q1 2024, we now need a smaller Talent Acquisition organization to meet our adjusted hiring needs. This action is the result of the reduction in our hiring targets to better align with our growth goals.”
• The job cuts did not affect the company's other teams, and it appears that the decision to downsize the TA department had been made for some time, with chief financial officer Michael Guthrie confirming in a recent earnings call that hiring had slowed significantly. “We will see leverage against pretty much all of the cost areas over the next 12 months,” said Guthrie. “We think we’ll see a little bit of leverage in cost of goods sold because we’ve slowed down hiring, leverage against our compensation expenses because infra, trust and safety, we slowed down a little bit there. We’ve already closed the gap pretty meaningfully on both of those two.”
• Roblox announced in August that it plans to start hiring people through the "Roblox Career Center" experience, which will be used to hold job interviews in-game and contains various resources to help those looking for a job at the company. The career center is geared toward those with junior-level experience, with a special emphasis on those who grew up playing Roblox.

More gaming news:

• Crystal Dynamics, the developer of Tomb Raider, has announced the layoff of 10 employees in its marketing and IT departments as part of an internal restructuring at Embracer Group. Embracer announced the restructuring in June after a $2 billion partnership with Savvy Games Group fell through.
• Criterion Games, best known for its work on the Burnout and Need for Speed franchises, has announced a transition from EA Sports to EA Entertainment to continue working on the Battlefield series. The studio previously collaborated with DICE on Battlefield V and 2042.