Zynga Lays Off 314 Employees, Or 15% Of Its Workforce

Paired with the news of a big half-billion-dollar acquisition, Zynga is also laying off about 15 percent of its workforce, or about 314 employees.

This is part of a cost-reduction plan that is supposed to generate $33 million to $35 million in savings this year, excluding a $15 million to $17 million restructuring charge.

In an interview today, CEO Don Mattrick said these jobs would mostly come out of “infrastructure” areas and wouldn’t involve shutting down any individual studios. A Seattle studio is being affected with a closure.

Zynga has roughly 2,000 employees at a time when better-performing competitors lack anywhere near the same kind of headcount. Supercell, which sold half of itself for $1.53 billion last fall to Japanese carrier Softbank, currently has about 130 employees and was producing just shy of $200 million a quarter in revenue in the beginning of last year.

Since Mattrick took over the company from founding CEO Mark Pincus, Zynga has engaged in a series of layoffs, cut out middle layers of management and shut down poorly performing games. Last summer, the company let go of about 520 people, or 18 percent of its workforce.