Spotify to lay off 17% of its workforce to ‘rightsize’ company’s cost
Asher Notheis
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Spotify announced Monday that it will lay off 17% of its workforce, stating that such cuts were necessary to “rightsize” the costs of the company.
The latest round of layoffs comes after the company hired many employees in 2020 and 2021, which was done to take advantage of “lower-cost capital.” The total number of employees who will be affected through this downsizing of employment is approximately 1,500, according to a memo from Spotify CEO Daniel Ek shared with the Washington Examiner.
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“We debated making smaller reductions throughout 2024 and 2025,” Ek’s memo read. “Yet, considering the gap between our financial goal state and our current operational costs, I decided that a substantial action to rightsize our costs was the best option to accomplish our objectives. While I am convinced this is the right action for our company, I also understand it will be incredibly painful for our team.”
Monday’s announcement is the most recent layoff announcement that Spotify has made this year, as it has made job cuts throughout 2023. At the start of the year, the company announced it would lay off 6% of its workforce, roughly 600 employees; in June, the company announced again that it would be making layoffs, this time with 2% of its workforce, or 200 employees.
The move from Spotify comes after the music platform expanded further into podcasts and audio books, with Spotify being the home platform for the incredibly popular The Joe Rogan Experience, which was the app’s most popular podcast in 2022. Beyond further expanding into audio books and podcasts, the platform also raised the prices of its subscription plans this year.
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Spotify is one of many companies that have reduced their workforce throughout 2023. On Jan. 18, Microsoft announced that it was laying off 10,000 jobs from its global workforce, marking the largest series of job cuts made by the tech giant in the last eight years.
Meta is another major company that announced layoffs earlier this year, announcing that, like Microsoft, it would let go of 10,000 employees. Other companies that have made major layoffs include Google, Amazon, and X.