Sea, the Singaporean company that owns Garena, which publishes games such as Free Fire, is closing projects and laying off employees in multiple locations around the world. The action, which reflected in the Brazilian market, possibly responds to a loss of almost US$ 1 billion (about R$ 5 billion at the current price) that the company suffered in the last fiscal quarter.
The information was released by Reuters last week. According to the site’s sources, among the affected initiatives are the Booyah! app, which performs live broadcasts. The service should no longer be updated.
Major blockchain and cloud initiatives were also shut down.with “dozens of people” eventually being laid off, according to an insider.
A spokesperson for Sea, the company that also owns Shopee, told Reuters that the company “has made some changes to improve efficiency in our operations that affect multiple functions” and that the company is focused on “long-term strength of our ecosystem”.
The tech giant’s spokesman declined to say how many people were laid off, however.
Impact in Brazil
Sea’s actions were also reflected in Garena in Brazil. O voxel talked to a person who was disconnected from the brand’s national office.
The source, who preferred not to be identified, told the report that this was not the first “wave” of layoffs promoted by the Garena subsidiary in the country. Talking about this most recent round of layoffs, she said that the news of the layoff was given on Monday morning (05) and that it “caught everyone by surprise”. “At least internally, things were looking good,” she points out.
The person also said that the atmosphere in the company is “tense”, since it is not known if another wave of layoffs could happen.
All my solidarity with the countless workers laid off at Garena today.
Post your CVs and portfolios here and I’ll RT them all
— Pedro Falcão (@pifalcao) September 5, 2022
“The news [da demissão] It was a hit, you know? I just thought about how I’m going to pay the bills and keep things up to date going forward. Because it was the salary, health plan and benefits that helped a lot in the day to day and not so cheap things. It was a very big shock, I am sad for myself and for other people who left who also depended a lot on being there”, he said.
Other side
O voxel contacted Garena in Brazil and asked if the country had closed projects and how many people were laid off in the local market. However, until the closing of the matter there was no response. The text will be updated if the company takes a position on the matter.
