UploadVR received a statement from Valve that 13 full-time employees and “a portion of our contractor agreements were terminated”. The statement goes on to say that “It’s an unfortunate part of business, but does not represent any major changes at the company.”
UploadVR (and others of course) then went on to check who the affected people were. Based on their research, they found individuals working on projects related to VR and the Steam Controller claiming that their employment at Valve ended in 2019.
An old render of the Steam Controller. Image Source: Valve Software.
I have not heard any info about the contractors, such as who they are or what they were doing.
According to a PC Gamer post from 2016, there were approximately 360 employees at Valve at that time. Assuming then is roughly the same as now, which is not really a good assumption but it’s what we need to work with, this would represent about 4% of their workforce… depending on how instrumental the “portion of our contractor agreements” was.
A restructure for larger companies is typically around 10% lay-offs, which 4% is significantly below. Granted, I’m not too worried about Valve’s financial health, but it’s generally good to check as an early sign of financial or structural issues involving the whole company.
Well Valve is a privately
Well Valve is a privately held company so they do not have the same reporting requirements as publically held companies.
So some folks were laid off and that’s normal for any company if some project required specific skills that are no longer needed, project complete etc. Really 14 out of 360 sounds more like the usual turnover rate but it’s going to be a little bit too difficult to know for sure what’s going on inside a private company like Valve. Subcontractor employees are not really considered the employees of the company that they are contracted to work for and their Job Status is usually not considered long term compared to actual employees.