Union files labour complaint, demands details from Ubisoft after sudden Halifax studio closure

The union representing Halifax workers laid off by Ubisoft is pushing the French gaming company for more information and employment opportunities for affected workers, in the latest labour dispute within the video game industry.

CWA Canada president Carmel Smyth said a recent meeting between the union and Ubisoft was “disappointing,” and that Ubisoft came to the table with “nothing.”

Ubisoft shut down its Halifax studio on Jan. 7, laying off 71 people three weeks after the majority of the team had received union certification. The company has denied that the studio’s closure was related to the unionization, instead citing financial difficulties for the decision. CWA Canada, the union representing the Ubisoft workers, announced on Tuesday that it had filed a labour complaint accusing the French gaming company of closing the office to quash the union. It’s demanding that the company prove financial troubles were behind the closure.

The Halifax closure is the latest round of layoffs amid years of financial struggles for the global gaming industry. When demand for games rose during the pandemic, gaming companies sought to hire more people. Not all of that extra investment paid off in profits, leading to mass layoffs in the years since. According to a database compiled by industry watcher Amir Satvat, a business development director at Tencent Games, roughly 45,000 workers have been laid off since 2022 globally.

The union met with Ubisoft on Wednesday to seek further details justifying the closure. In a note to members shared with BetaKit, CWA Canada president Carmel Smyth said the meeting was “disappointing” and that Ubisoft came to the table with “nothing.” Smyth told BetaKit that Ubisoft committed to talking again on Friday and possibly “providing financial information proving its duress.”

According to the note, the union’s priority is to get the laid-off employees jobs at Ubisoft, either remotely or at other Canadian locations. Smyth said she also brought up the issue of employees on parental leave “being treated incredibly unfairly” by not qualifying for the full severance payment. BetaKit has reached out to Ubisoft for comment.

Financial difficulties in the gaming industry

Ubisoft itself has closed or downsized studios in London, San Francisco, and Osaka, Japan, amid financial difficulties. This week, it laid off nearly 30 employees at a mobile game studio in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates. The company had roughly 21,000 employees in 2022, and is now at 17,000, according to its website. The company moved a few of its top titles into a subsidiary called Vantage Studios that Chinese tech giant Tencent took a 26-percent stake in this fall. In November, the company abruptly halted trading and postponed announcing its financial results. Meanwhile, its shares are trading at roughly half their value, compared to a year ago.

Ubisoft is a beneficiary of Canada’s robust tax credit system for the multimedia and gaming industry. The company, which employs around 5,000 people in Canada, said in a presentation to French Senate officials in May 2025 that it had received more than $605 million euros (roughly $977 million CAD) in tax credits in Canada between 2020 and 2024. In Nova Scotia, a spokesperson for the finance department confirmed to BetaKit that Ubisoft had received $10.57 million through the Digital Media Tax Credit from 2017 to 2025 and that an additional $2 million was approved this January.

In a statement on Wednesday, CWA Canada said it was “calling on governments to put tougher conditions on corporate subsidies, including tax credits” to make sure companies don’t “dine and dash.”

Québec, which is home to the majority of Canadian Ubisoft employees, has also seen job cuts, despite being a hub for the video gaming industry. Montréal-based studios cut nearly 500 jobs over 2024 and 2025, according to newsletter Ctrl Alt Deliberate. Meanwhile, the provincial government’s spending on its multimedia tax credit was $477 million in 2025, up from $310 million in 2020.

The layoffs inspired a union push among video gaming workers in Canada, the vast majority of whom were not unionized. Gaming Workers Unite began a campaign in Québec to unionize studios, and Bethesda Game Studios is so far the only one to still be unionized in Canada. Employees at Keyword Studios in Edmonton who voted to unionize in 2023 were laid off later that year.

These conditions helped prompt union action at Ubisoft Halifax. Former employee and union representative Jon Huffman told BetaKit last week that they started considering a union after Halifax-based studio Alpha Dog, owned by Microsoft, shut down in 2024.

Feature image courtesy Ubisoft Halifax on LinkedIn.