In addition to Twitch, Amazon’s other companies, Prime Video and MGM, also plan to lay off employees.
AAmazon is planning significant layoffs on streaming platforms Twitch. It is planned to lay off 500 employees, around 35% of the platform’s total workforce. The announcement came in the same week that theGoogle confirmed that it will lay off up to 30 thousand employees.
Despite having already cut costs seeking greater efficiency, Twitch CEO Dan Clancy commented that, currently, the platform is larger than necessary.
“As you all know, we have worked hard over the last year to run our business in the most sustainable way possible. Unfortunately, we still have work to do to properly scale our company, and I’m sorry to share that we are making the painful decision to reduce our headcount by just over 500 people across Twitch,” Clancy wrote in an email to employees.
The internal statement also mentions that the layoffs will affect other Amazon subsidiary companies, such as the Prime Video streaming platform and MGM studios.
“We identify opportunities to reduce or pause investments in certain areas, while increasing our investment and focus on content and product initiatives that deliver the greatest impact,” said Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios SVP Mike Hopkins, to the company’s workers.
Financial crisis or neglect?
The news may be surprising, but not long ago Amazon did something similar on an even larger scale. Last year, the company cut more than 27,000 jobs during a wave of layoffs that occurred in the US technology sector, which included companies such as Google, the Facebook (Meta) ofMicrosoft. In total, the four companies laid off approximately 60 thousand employees, going against the flow of hiring that took place during the pandemic period.
Although the general scenario for companies last year was a plausible justification at the time, the reasons given by Amazon executives for this week’s layoffs conflict with the technology giant’s results and new investments. Last year, the company profited US$9.9 billion between July and September. Furthermore, it has been investing extensively in the media business, as can be seen by the US$8.5 billion deal for MGM and the budget of approximately US$465 million to produce just the first season of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings.” Anis do Poder” in 2022.
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