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Staff at UK video game retailer GAME have reportedly been told to expect layoffs as they’ve been moved to zero-hours contracts.
According to a recent report from Eurogamer, the high street chain owned by Fraser Group will now employ most non-managerial staff with zero-hours contracts from now on, while newer junior staff members, who are also on zero-hours contracts, are being referred to as “cast members.”
Multiple staff members, who remained anonymous, confirmed the changes to the publication and said that the move to make zero-hours contacts standard across the business was not unexpected.
In addition, staff have been told to expect layoffs and that employees will either be contacted by email or telephone, informing them of any job cuts.
At this time, GAME hasn’t released a statement and it’s currently unclear how many jobs will be cut.
In February, GAME halted all trade-ins in its stores to phase out its pre-owned stock.
Standalone GAME stores will continue to sell pre-owned stock until everything is gone, while concession stores – like those that exist within Sports Direct stores – were stopped entirely.
Concession stores were set to complete store-to-store transfers of their pre-owned software, while hardware will be sent back to the distribution center to be redistributed.
The new policy comes after a transition phase that saw the retailer move from standalone stores to smaller concession stores in Sports Direct and House of Fraser.
This most recent report is another in an ongoing wave of job cuts across the games industry, all of which have amounted to over 16,000 in the past 18 months according to PC Gamer.
These job cuts aren’t contained to one small sector of the industry and have affected major game development studios, such as Naughty Dog, PlayStation, and Supermassive Games, as well as other companies like Humble Games and Amazon Games.
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