Sega Sammy cuts executive payment and staff

The Japanese gaming firm plans to cut 650 positions from its 9,051-strong payroll by the end of the year.  

Japan.- Sega Sammy Holdings has opened a voluntary redundancy scheme through which it plans to reduce its staff by 650.  

The company also confirmed its directors will take pay cuts as the firm expects extraordinary losses of JPY10bn (US$95m) in the fiscal year ending March 2021. 

The company said: “In light of the situation that many of our group’s business are significantly affected by Covid-19, we have established a Structural Reform Committee to reform our organization structure to adapt to the external environment and working to review the balance sheet for non-business properties, build an organizational structure that can adapt to changes in the market environment, and reduce costs centred on group-wide fixed expenses.” 

Part of this restructuring was the transfer of its amusement centres business to GENDA.

Sega Sammy said: “We consider that it is necessary to promote cost-reduction centred on fixed expenses and build an even more efficient system and decided to call for voluntary retirement of employees.” 

The eligible applicants will be full-time employees and contract employees of the four companies in the group.

The programme will be open from November 16 to December 25, and those chosen will leave the group on February 28, 2021.

Meanwhile, the representative director of the board will see his salary reduced by 30 per cent. The director and senior executive vice president will receive a cut of 20 per cent, and the senior vice president will perceive 10 per cent less.

The pay cuts will affect directors of the group’s companies, with reductions of between 5 and 20 per cent on monthly base salaries between November of 2020 and March 2021.  The company will not pay performance-related bonuses for the current year.