Not the best news for Sony employees, especially since Christmas is coming: the company announced plans to fire 8,000 people and pull out unprofitable business as part of the company’s restructuring efforts to slash $1,1 Billion (100 billion yen) in costs. It seems that’s what happens if you mix low console sales with the economic crisis.

According to a Reuters report, Sony has already announced back in October plans to cut jobs and reduce spendings in order to cope with the worsening business environment, but I doubt many people were expecting such massive and drastic measures.

Sony did not announce when the personnel cuts will take place, but these usually happen as soon as they’re announced, which means that 8,000 people won’t have some really happy holidays. So let’s just hope that big S can get back on track and offer the people their jobs back or that a super powerful new company arises out of nowhere to put these people on the payroll again…