Spotify has announced the dismissal of some of its employees, because of the bad economic context and in an attempt to reduce costs. The company is the latest in a long line of tech companies forced to cut staff numbers.
The bleeding continues. After Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, it is now Spotify’s turn to lay off some of its employees. The music streaming giant broke the news via a note addressed to its employeespublished on January 23, 2023.
” In order to reduce our expenses, we made the difficult, but necessary, decision to reduce the number of our employees », Explains in the letter Daniel Ek, the boss of the platform. The redundancy plan will affect 6% of employees, or 600 people out of the company’s 9,808 employees.
Blame it on a “difficult macroeconomic” situation
If Daniel Ek explains that the decision was hard to make, he believes however that there was no choice. ” In 2022, Spotify’s operating costs were twice our revenue “, indicates the president. ” It would not have been sustainable in any context, but in this difficult macroeconomic situation, it would have been even harder to make ends meet. “. He adds that, despite the budget cuts implemented by the company in recent months, the efforts have not been sufficient.
This is not the only change that the company will experience: at the management level, things will also be different. We note the departure of Dawn Ostroff, who notably took care of Spotify’s podcast share, and the appointment of the Chief Product Officer and the Chief Business Officer as Vice-President.
The poor global economic health is impacting more and more companies. The tech sector, which has long been spared, is now bearing the brunt of the repercussions of the Covid-19 pandemic and the war between Russia and Ukraine. Tech companies, many of which hired massively in 2020 to meet new online needs, must now face the crisis and resolve to lay off workers. ” Looking back, I realize that I was too ambitious in investing before an increase in our income “, concedes Daniel Ek in his letter.
Spotify also had its share of controversy in 2022. The podcast of Joe Rogan, a controversial American host for having made anti-vaccination remarks and transphobic comments, caused the departure of musicians Neil Young and Jodi Mitchell from the platform. Numerama had also revealed that the platform hosted podcasts by Alain Soral, the far-right anti-Semitic newspaper Faits&Documents, or even the conspiracy group DéQodeurs. They have all since been removed by the platform.
Do you like our media? Tell us in this survey!
