According to people familiar with the plans, Spotify Technology SA is considering layoffs as soon as this week, joining a wave of tech companies, from Amazon.com Inc. to Meta Platforms Inc., in announcing job cuts to slash expenses.
The folks did not specify the number of posts to be abolished. In October, Spotify fired off 38 employees from its Gimlet Media and Parcast podcast studios. According to its third-quarter financial report, the music-streaming behemoth employs approximately 9.800 people.
During the pandemic, tech companies increased their workforce but were compelled to cut back due to decreased advertising revenue and a bleak economic outlook.
Amazon.com, Meta, and Microsoft Corp. were among the most recent corporations to announce layoffs, while Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google, announced on Friday that it will lose roughly 12,000 positions or more than 6% of its global workforce.
A Spotify representative declined to comment on the impending cuts.
Beginning in 2019, the corporation made a significant investment in podcasting. It spent more than a billion dollars purchasing podcast networks, creation tools, a hosting service, and the rights to popular shows such as The Joe Rogan Experience and Armchair Expert.
Nonetheless, the investments have put investors’ patience to the test. Last year, shares fell 66% as investors questioned when they would start generating returns. Spotify executives stated in June that the company’s podcast business would be profitable within the next one to two years.
According to the source, Spotify layoffs will affect editorial employees in September 2022. According to the company’s Q3 statistics, the company currently employs approximately 9,800 people.
Thousands of employees worldwide have been affected by the season of mass layoffs. According to Layoffs. FYI, a total of 173 IT companies fired 55,970 employees in 2023 at the time of writing this piece.
