Spotify Adds To Big Tech Layoffs With Highest Job Cuts Since 2000

Swedish music streaming giant, Spotify, is set to cut 6% of its entire workforce — a move which will amount to laying off around 600 employees.

The cuts come as part of efforts to increase efficiencies in a “challenging macro environment”, the tech company announced on Monday, January 23rd. Spotify reported net losses of $181 million in the third quarter of 2022, compared with a $2 million profit the year before, with share prices falling by a monumental 49% in a single year.

Spotify was forced to take the decision after soaring costs and growing operational expenditure began to rapidly outpace revenue generation, and followed the firing of 38 staff from Gimlet Media and Parcast podcast studios in October, which are also owned by the Swedish streaming service.

“In hindsight, I was too ambitious in investing ahead of our revenue growth,” admitted chief executive Daniel Ek. “That would have been unsustainable long-term in any climate, but with a challenging macro environment, it would be even more difficult to close the gap”.

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Ek went on to confirm that chief content officer Dawn Ostroff would also be leaving the company, whose workforce numbered 9,800 employees in mid-2022.

A total of 97,171 jobs were axed in the technology sector in 2022, a 649% increase over 2021 and the highest since the fateful dot-com crash of the early 2000s. Spotify’s layoffs mirror those of other corporations in the technology sector, including Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google’s Alphabet. Part of those cuts can be explained by the extra hires required during the height of the Covid pandemic, though rising interest rates and growing fears of a recession are also influencing the somber atmosphere.