It wouldn’t be summer without some form of unfortunate job cuts hitting Sony. According to sources, the job cuts in particular are due to lower than anticipated box office returns and mainly affecting Sony Pictures.

 Sony Corporation of America (SCA) has already pink-slipped roughly 100 from its 700-person workforce as it looks to consolidate back-office functions.

Most of the senior vice president titles and above are going. The parent company is taking over. They don’t need a corporate structure in the US. 

However, Sony begs to differ on the news.

An SCA rep said:

 Over 100 is not accurate. A small number of positions were eliminated at SCA earlier this summer to consolidate duplicative functions and create a more efficient and stronger organization moving forward. These changes at SCA have nothing to do with Sony Pictures whatsoever. 

For those unfamiliar, SCA oversees Sony Pictures, Sony Music, and Sony Electronics. Some mixed information here but the first thing to note is that this isn’t related to electronics in any shape, despite Sony Mobile struggling in the US. With Sony Mobile planning on defocusing in the US, there could be further job cuts from that division in the future.

Instead from people who I’ve talked to, all these cuts seem to stem from Sony Pictures and aren’t directly related to box office returns. Though returns have been lower than what Sony would have wanted, in all likelihood, some of these cuts were coming either way as SPE has recently hired a new CFO that’s looking to trim where he can. However, the better the division does, the fewer cuts that tend to come with it.

I also don’t buy the lack of need for a ‘corporate structure in the US,’ seeing how SPE is a very different company than Sony Electronics which is headquartered in Japan. Movie making and consumer hardware are two very different businesses so it’s not as if the positions cut could instead be orchestrated from anywhere else. Instead, Sony is cutting jobs because it likely feels that it can do without them. As always, it’s sad to hear of job losses hitting any company, especially SPE which employs some very talented people.

Discuss:

Do you see additional job cuts hitting Sony in the future?

[Via NYPost]