rate of Nintendo employees

[thornstrom]

Time for another updated to my OP analyzing the number of employees at the Nintendo.

Year ended March 31, 2006: 3,150 employees (Wii release)
Year ended March 31, 2007: 3,373 employees [+223]
Year ended March 31, 2008: 3,768 employees [+395]
Year ended March 31, 2009: 4,130 employees [+362]
Year ended March 31, 2010: 4,425 employees [+295]
Year ended March 31, 2011: 4,712 employees [+287] (Nintendo 3DS release)
Year ended March 31, 2012: 4,928 employees [+216] (Wii U release)
Year ended March 31, 2013: 5,080 employees [+152]
Year ended March 31, 2014: 5,222 employees [+142]
Year ended March 31, 2015: 5,120 employees [-102]
Year ended March 31, 2016: 5,064 employees [-56]
Year ended March 31, 2017: 5,166 employees [+102] (Nintendo Switch release)
Year ended March 31, 2018: 5,501 employees [+335]
Year ended March 31, 2019: 5,944 employees [+443]
Year ended March 31, 2020: 6,200 employees [+256]
Year ended March 31, 2021: 6,574 employees [+374]

Latest full-year financial statement: https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2021/210506e.pdf

There's a noticable slowdown in the number of hirings between 2013-2014 and even a decrease in 2015-2016, a period where Nintendo had financial difficulties (Wii U selling way below expectations). I bet this created a tricky situation, because at the same time HD games demands more developer resources than former-generation games, and great first party games were needed to make the next hardware generation, the Nintendo Switch, successful. The situation was helped by porting Wii U games instead of developing completely new games from scratch, and slowing down support for the Nintendo 3DS. With the success of the Nintendo Switch, the headcount is increasing again, supplying current generation with new software and preparing for what's next.