Japanese
arcade and pachinko operator Sega Sammy Holdings is hoping to find 650 staff who want to retire early. It announced the retirement opportunity after announcing a 33.4% decline in sales for the first half of 2020.
Anyone at Sega Sammy looking for an early way out, with special retirement allowances and re-employment support, has until December 25 to let the company know.
“In the view of the great impact on our business inflicted by the COVID-19 pandemic, we have established a restructuring committee to transform our structure to one adapted to our external environment,” the company said.
The 9,051 full-time employees and contract employees at Sega Sammy are eligible for the program. Should they contact Sega Sammy to opt in between November 16 and December 25, they will begin their retirement on February 28, 2021.
The same announcement revealed Sega Sammy directors will be taking a pay cut. Directors and Senior leaders can expect to see their monthly base salary fall anywhere from 5% to 30%, depending on their position.
Assuming 650 step forward, Sega Sammy will be paying a handsome cost to reduce their future losses. “We expect to record approximately 10 billion yen ($96 million) as extraordinary losses (structural reform expenses) in fiscal year ending March 2021 in associated with the call for voluntary retirement,” the release noted.
Sales dropped to 110.23 billion yen ($1.06 billion) between April and September, down 33.4% year over year. That created a loss of 3.08 billion yen ($29.6 million), down from a profit of 14.6 billion yes ($140.7 million) for the same period in 2019.
A healthy portion of that came from its integrated resort (IR) business. The operator owns a 45% share in Paradise City, Incheon, a foreigner-only casino in South Korea. Sales fell there 58.9% to 2.28 billion yen (US$22.0 million) as foreigners are unable to make it to the casino during Covid-19.
