ESL is laying off some staff as part of a restructure.
Apparently 50 staff at ESL Germany have been laid off today, according to sources close to the situation, however Slingshot reports that ESL ‘has notified at least 20 people, many in production’.
ESL has since contacted Esports News UK to say that 50 ‘is not the number of people that were laid off’ and that ‘the number of affected employees is very limited’.
Staff were told about the news by ESL today.
An internal email allegedly claimed that the layoffs were due to ‘increased competition’ among other reasons.
Affected staff were told in a meeting. Those who weren’t around received an email saying separate meetings would be arranged with them to discuss their redundancies.
“ESL is realigning resources and expanding its organisation to drive innovation in the esports market.”
ESL
Esports News UK has done some digging and understand that staff at ESL UK are safe.
The scale of the restructure is not yet clear at this stage, and there may be more layoffs made internationally, particularly in the US.
ESL said in a statement sent to Esports News UK: “ESL is realigning resources and expanding its organisation to drive innovation in the esports market, including creating opportunities in original programming, strengthening our in-game capabilities, and expanding our brand globally.
“As part of that process, some people will be leaving the company. This only reflects an adjustment of our internal organisation and is a step towards preparing ESL for the future ahead, and will not affect the quality of productions such as ESL One Cologne.”
Slingshot also reports that ‘most’ employees affected will not leave now – they will reportedly lose their jobs at end of September.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
