New York
CNN
—
Amazon on Wednesday minimize lots of of jobs throughout two totally different enterprise models: streaming platform Twitch and its movie and tv studios division.
Amazon is slicing “a number of hundred” roles throughout Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, in response to an inside word shared with CNN. As well as, online game streaming firm Twitch, which is owned by the tech large, stated Wednesday it’s shedding 500 employees as a part of ongoing cost-cutting efforts.
Mike Hopkins, senior vp of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, stated in an inside memo that the corporate started to achieve out to affected workers Wednesday.
“We’ve recognized alternatives to scale back or discontinue investments in sure areas whereas growing our funding and deal with content material and product initiatives that ship probably the most affect,” he stated within the letter.
Amazon closed its $8.5 billion deal to acquire MGM in 2022, which helped increase the corporate’s place within the leisure world whereas giving its streaming service, Amazon Prime Video, much more content material to fill its already in depth library.
Hopkins stated the corporate is “offering packages that embrace a separation fee, transitional advantages as relevant by nation, and exterior job placement assist.”
Twitch CEO Dan Clancy confirmed the gaming unit’s layoffs in messages to the corporate’s customers and workers, calling it an “extremely tough” choice. Wednesday’s announcement comes after Twitch laid off 400 employees in March of final yr as a part of broader cuts at mum or dad firm Amazon.
“Over the past yr, we’ve been working to construct a extra sustainable enterprise in order that Twitch will probably be right here for the long term and all year long we have now minimize prices and made many choices to be extra environment friendly,” Clancy stated within the word to workers, which was shared publicly. “Sadly, regardless of these efforts, it has develop into clear that our group continues to be meaningfully bigger than it must be given the scale of our enterprise.”
The layoffs have been first reported by Bloomberg.
It was not instantly clear which areas of the corporate could be affected by the cuts. Clancy stated affected workers could be notified on Wednesday.
The CEO additionally stated he would maintain a livestream dialog on Twitch on Thursday afternoon to reply any questions from the corporate’s customers.
The layoffs level to ongoing challenges at Twitch, though Amazon doesn’t escape particular outcomes for the unit. In addition they observe the departures of a number of high executives from the corporate late final yr, together with its chief product officer, chief buyer officer, chief content material officer and chief income officer.
“Whereas the Twitch enterprise stays robust, for a while now the group has been sized based mostly upon the place we optimistically count on our enterprise to be in 3 or extra years, not the place we’re at right now,” Clancy advised workers Wednesday.
He added that Twitch paid out $1 billion to streamers by means of its income share mannequin in 2023.
Many main tech corporations conducted mass layoffs final yr in an try and compensate as pandemic-era income highs got here again all the way down to earth.
These layoffs largely tapered off towards the second half of final yr, though Amazon and Google made some smaller, extra focused cuts in late 2023, and different tech corporations together with Spotify, Etsy and Dataminr additionally made cuts.