According to an internal memo sent Wednesday, Amazon is planning to lay off hundreds of employees across streaming and studio operations. The announcement coincided with Twitch, a subsidiary of the e-commerce giant, revealing that it would lay off approximately 35% of its workforce, or around 500 people.
Last year, Amazon cut more than 27,000 jobs as part of its U.S. tech job cuts, marking a departure from the industry’s hiring surge during the pandemic. Facebook and Microsoft each laid off 10,000 employees, while Google cut 12,000 jobs last year.
Mike Hopkins, senior vice president of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, informed employees that, “As we increase our investments, we will also identify opportunities to reduce or eliminate investments in specific areas to make the most impact, allowing us to focus on content and product initiatives.”
Twitch CEO Dan Clancy acknowledged in a blog post that the company had grown too big based on optimism for faster expansion of the business. “There remains work to do to right-size the company,” Clancy wrote, citing that the size of the organization had been projected optimistically based on future growth rather than its current state.
In recent years, Amazon has been aggressively investing in its media business, including an $8.5 billion deal with MGM and the 2022 release of The Lord of the Rings on Prime Video. The company has also spent approximately $465 million on the first season of “The Power of Power.” Additionally, Amazon plans to run ads on Prime Video in certain markets and introduce a pricier ad-free subscription tier, similar to moves made by competitors like Netflix and Disney.
Source: www.theguardian.com
