Spotify announces layoffs impacting 6% of global workforce

Music streaming service Spotify has announced that it will be conducting a round of layoffs that will impact around 6% of its global workforce, this is around 600 employees.

In its most recent earnings release, the company said that there were 9,808 full-time employees working for Spotify.

Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek said in a note to employees that the company had to conduct layoffs because Spotify’s current trajectory was unsustainable over the long run.

"To offer some perspective on why we are making this decision, in 2022, the growth of Spotify’s [operating expenses] outpaced our revenue growth by 2X. 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," Ek wrote.

Spotify employees who are impacted will be invited to one-on-one conversations over the next few hours. They will receive severance pay that will vary depending on local notice period requirements and employee tenure. On average, employees will receive five months of severance.

Last week, Microsoft announced that it was laying off 10,000 people while Google’s parent company said it would cut 12,000 jobs. Amazon, Meta, Salesforce and many other smaller companies have all announced their own round of layoffs in recent weeks.