Referring to a decision difficult but necessary “, Spotify will once again lay off. This time, 200 people will have to leave the ship.
Earlier this year, Spotify joined the club of big tech companies in massive layoffs of employees, announcing the cut of 6% of its workforce, or 600 employees, to reduce expenses and better absorb its recent operating expenses in podcast development. And it is precisely this last division which comes directly to suffer the new wave of layoffs, announced this Monday, June 5 by the Swedish company.
200 new layoffs, despite record numbers
There is no doubt that Spotify is the premier audio streaming platform in the world. With approximately 500 million active users and more than 210 million premium subscribers, the service is well established in its sector. But as part of its reorganization, Spotify will amputate its podcast division of part of its workforce.
The company announced on Monday its intention to lay off 200 people, or 2% of the firm’s employees. The vice-president of Spotify and patron of the podcast activity Sahar Elhabashi evokes a ” difficult but necessary decision to make a strategic realignment of the company. ” Unfortunately, this means saying goodbye to close colleagues and friends. “, she adds.
In the note, the leader promises to soften these layoffs as much as possible, with generous severance pay and extensive medical coverage. But what really justifies these 200 new redundancies?
Spotify seems to have reached a ceiling in terms of staff dedicated to the podcast
” We’re expanding our partnership efforts with leading podcasters around the world, with a tailored approach optimized for each show and creator “, explains Sahar Elhabashi, who therefore justifies a necessary adaptation to better support creators, who may be more independent than in the past.
Spotify seems to have put its podcast division on the right track. Launched in 2019 with the idea of producing partly exclusive content, it is the most listened to in the world, with 100 million listeners. ” Since we entered this market, over half a billion people have listened to a podcast on Spotify “Explains the vice-president, referring to an increase from 200,000 to 5 million programs on the platform, in addition to a 1,400% increase in the consumption of podcasts on the service.
Creators and the company seem to be benefiting, as podcast ad revenue saw double-digit growth last year, compared to 2021.
Source : Spotify
1