Spotify might be shedding 200 workers, or about 2% of its whole workforce, as a part of a worldwide reorganizing effort, the corporate mentioned Monday. Most of those layoffs will come from the model’s podcast division.
The model made “a strategic realignment of our group and cut back our world podcast vertical and different features,” Sahar Elhabashi, Spotify’s vice chairman and head of podcast enterprise, mentioned in a press launch. Elhabashi added that Spotify’s podcast vertical had grow to be “centered on delivering much more worth for creators,” which “begins with maximizing consumption from the huge viewers we have established by way of format innovation and guaranteeing that extra creators in additional locations obtain success.”
“Sadly, this implies saying goodbye to shut colleagues and pals,” Elhabashi mentioned.
Two of the corporate’s standard podcast studios, Gimlet Media and Parcast, will merge into Spotify Studios, with their very own branding being eliminated, in response to the press launch. A 3rd standard studio, the sports-oriented The Ringer, will preserve working independently.
This marks the second spherical of layoffs at Spotify in 2023. This previous January, the corporate introduced it was eliminating 6% of its workforce, or round 600 workers, in a cost-cutting measure.
Since its founding in 2006, the Stockholm-headquartered Spotify has grow to be one of many largest audio streaming firms on this planet, however has by no means turned an annual revenue. Music royalties knowledgeable Phil Chook instructed The Washington Publish the model was seemingly in “perennial start-up mode.”
Whereas Spotify first centered on dominating the music streaming house, it has “spent closely to broaden its podcast unit within the final three years,” CNBC reported. The corporate has reportedly spent at the very least $526 million on 4 acquisitions of podcast studios since 2020.
The corporate had a worldwide workforce of 8,359 folks in 2020, in response to an SEC submitting, with 4,432 of them being based mostly in america.