No E Office

Earlier this year we reported on a reshuffle at Nintendo of Europe that was bringing the loss of 130 permanent jobs, with the Großostheim office in Germany being the largest affected area due to its closure.

It's emerged, however, that the total number of roles that will be lost as of 31st August is nearer 320. As reported by Kotaku, this is due to 190 roles being lost in the localisation department; these jobs were fulfilled through an agency, but those part time staff reportedly worked exclusively for Nintendo in that capacity, in some cases for a number of years. Nintendo issued the following statement.

As previously communicated in June 2014, approximately 130 permanent employees will be released by Nintendo of Europe (Germany) at the end of August 2014 as part of a set of measures to better enable the European business to adapt to the rapidly changing business environment.

As a separate measure, Nintendo of Europe is reorganizing its European Localization Development (ELD) department, where it currently uses a number of temporary agency workers in translation and testing activities, in order to increase flexibility and cost-efficiency in the long-term. It is intended that there will be an increase in outsourcing future translation and test activities to third-party companies on an as-needed basis, and very sadly this has meant having ended the contracts of 190 temporary agency workers, who were formally notified of this decision in June 2014.

Our thoughts are with those affected by the cuts.

Thanks to Benson Uii for the heads up.

[source kotaku.com]