Spotify To Lay Off 17% Of Global Workforce
According to news agencies, music streaming giant Spotify announced on Monday that it will reduce its total headcount by around 17 per cent across the company in order to cut costs amid "dramatically" slower economic growth.
Employees affected will be notified on Monday and will meet with human resources by the end of the day on Tuesday, according to a statement released by the music streaming service, according to Bloomberg.
"We still have too many people dedicated to supporting work and even doing work around the work rather than contributing to opportunities with real impact," said CEO and founder Daniel Ek.
"I realise that for many, a reduction of this size will feel surprisingly large given the recent positive earnings report and our performance. The company invested significantly in team expansion, content enhancement, marketing, and new verticals" in 2020 and 2021. However, we are now in a very different environment and, despite our efforts to cut costs over the past year, our cost structure for where we need to be remains too large," Ek wrote in a blog post.
He also stated that he will focus on a leaner structure that will allow the company to be more strategic about how profits are reinvested in the business.
Ek will discuss the cuts in a "Unplugged" session on Wednesday.
Notably, Spotify announced in January this year that it would lay off approximately 6,000 employees, or 6 per cent of its workforce. It announced plans to cut an additional 200 jobs, or 2 per cent of its workforce, in June. These cuts resulted in C-suite changes, including the departure of Chief Content Officer Dawn Ostroff.
