Ubisoft to curb hiring following mass expansion

Ubisoft is looking to slow down the hiring of new staff after the company had brought on some 1,300 new workers last year.

On Wednesday the Paris-based firm reported a €41 million drop in annual net profit for FY 2008-2009.

Following this, CEO and co-founder Yves Guillemot said that the publisher plans to curb the appointment of new staff after an unexpectedly high number of new arrivals last year. Ubisoft currently has some 5,750 employees.

“Our goal is to grow on average 20 percent a year and there will be years that are at 30 percent and some that are 10 percent,” said Guillemot. “We will continue to hire, but as we hired more than the plan last year, we will diminish the number of hires this year.”

According to a Bloomberg report, Guillemot also said that the publisher’s recent success was centred on its ability to “take the new technologies right at the beginning of their availability, and go after them faster than everyone else.”

The company has in recent times delivered a range of successful Wii and DS titles while many other publishers have struggled to succeed with Nintendo’s format. Total sales for th group have risen by 55 percent over the past two years.