Spotify has become the latest tech company to announce job cuts to its global workforce.
The Stockholm-based music streaming firm said that around 6% of its workforce will be affected as it attempts to “bring costs more in line” and that one-on-one conversations were taking place today with those at risk.
In a message to staff CEO Daniel Ek explained that operating expenditure had grown at double the rate of revenues and that the gap between the two was unsustainable.
Tech job cuts
“While I believe this decision is right for Spotify, I understand that with our historic focus on growth, many of you will view this as a shift in our culture,” said Ek. “But as we evolve and grow as a business, so must our way of working while still staying true to our core values.
“As you are well aware, over the last few months we’ve made a considerable effort to rein in costs, but it simply hasn’t been enough. So while it is clear this path is the right one for Spotify, it doesn’t make it any easier – especially as we think about the many contributions these colleagues have made.”
He added: “Like many other leaders, I hoped to sustain the strong tailwinds from the pandemic and believed that our broad global business and lower risk to the impact of a slowdown in ads would insulate us. In hindsight, I was too ambitious in investing ahead of our revenue growth. And for this reason, today, we are reducing our employee base by about 6% across the company. I take full accountability for the moves that got us here today.”
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Spotify employs around 700 people in the UK. Last week Alphabet announced it was shedding 12,000 jobs globally, which followed similar cuts at Microsoft and Facebook-owner Meta.
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