Swedish audio streaming service Spotify is reducing its workforce by 6% – meaning that 600 jobs will be lost, announced CEO Daniel Ek on Monday.
The layoffs come after a stream of tech giants recently reduced their workforce. Meta, Microsoft and Amazon all recently laid off staff. Google last week announced it would lay off 12,000 employees.
Ek announced the layoffs as part of a greater organisational restructure in order to boost efficiency and reduce costs. Spotify shares rose by 4% after the cuts were announced.
"As part of this effort, and to bring our costs more in line, we’ve made the difficult but necessary decision to reduce our number of employees," Ek said in the statement.
Related News
- 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' breaks streaming record on Spotify
- Musicians not correctly compensated by streaming platforms such as Spotify
Affected employees will be notified "over the next several hours" and will get a roughly five-month severance, while the company will continue to pay for their health insurance during this time.
Spotify is the largest music streaming service but in recent years it focused on podcasts and audiobooks to attract users to its platform. According to its latest earnings report, there were 195 million premium Spotify subscribers and 456 million monthly active users.
In the last quarter of 2022, the company reported a revenue of €3 billion, according to its latest earnings report. It also stated an operating loss of €228 million for that quarter.
