KRAFTON is ramping up the intensity of a company-wide restructuring and workforce-efficiency drive. Following a “voluntary resignation option” aimed at rank-and-file employees, the company has now moved to direct headcount reductions and changes in employment arrangements targeting senior executives and office head–level appointees. In key business organizations such as publishing, in particular, internal chatter surrounding contract renewals has surfaced, suggesting the bar for personnel shakeups is being raised.

According to reporting compiled on the 29th, KRAFTON recently notified some executives that their contracts would not be renewed. This is widely interpreted as a move to directly shrink the size of its executive roster as part of a broader management-efficiency initiative.

Alongside executive reductions, changes in employment arrangements for office head–level (organization head) positions have also been foreshadowed. KRAFTON is reportedly planning to convert office head–level personnel to fixed-term contracts starting next year. While some high-salary employees have previously been kept on contract-based arrangements, this step differs in that it expands the contract conversion across office head–level appointees more broadly.

This is being analyzed as a strategy to secure greater employment flexibility for senior positions. If office head–level personnel converted to fixed-term contracts fail to deliver results, the company can reduce headcount by simply ending the contract at expiration.

In other words, it amounts to a two-track strategy: encourage voluntary departures among general employees, while reducing senior staff—who are easier to exit—either through non-renewal or by converting them to fixed-term contracts and then cutting based on performance evaluations.

This pattern is being felt most clearly within the publishing organization. According to internal sources, a high-intensity headcount reduction stance has continued, centered on the publishing group.

Some also interpret the contract renewal and contract-conversion issue as being used as a tool to strengthen leadership within the organization. The concern is that, in frontline business groups such as business divisions, whether a contract is extended could become tied not only to performance but also to one’s level of alignment with leadership. Observers see this as, effectively, a move to use renewal authority to reorganize the organization’s human composition in a direction that matches leadership’s intentions.

Previously, KRAFTON had been mechanically consolidating small teams, primarily within headquarters support functions. The approach was to merge teams composed of only a handful of people—around three members—into other organizations, creating overlapping responsibilities. In the process, as some members found their footing narrowed, they were steered toward choosing the voluntary departure program.

These measures have been escalating step by step: starting with a hiring freeze, then voluntary departures, organizational mergers and consolidations, and now senior-level reductions and personnel reshuffling within specific organizations. This is being interpreted as a carefully calibrated process aimed at achieving company-wide fixed-cost reductions and a natural decrease in headcount—without formally declaring physical layoffs.

A KRAFTON representative explained, “This is not an artificial restructuring, but a process to improve the organization’s constitution and raise work efficiency in line with our ‘AI First’ strategy.” The representative added, “The ‘voluntary resignation option program’ is a company-wide system designed to support employees’ autonomous career choices in a changing environment, and personnel changes among executives and organization heads are likewise decisions based on performance and role—not intended to shrink or cut any particular organization.”

This article was translated from the original that appeared on INVEN.