VOA News | Monday, December 4, 2023 
Spotify to Lay Off 1,500 Employees

Spotify says it is planning to lay off 17% of its global workforce, amounting to around 1,500 employees, following layoffs earlier this year of 600 people in January and an additional 200 in June. The music streaming giant is continuing its effort to cut costs and work toward becoming profitable, said Spotify CEO Daniel Ek in a prepared statement. “By most metrics, we were more productive but less efficient,” he said. “We need to be both.” The layoffs come following a rare quarterly net profit of about $70.3 million in October. The company has never seen a full year net profit. “I realize that for many, a reduction of this size will feel surprisingly large given the recent positive earnings report and our performance,” Ek said. “We debated making smaller reductions throughout 2024 and 2025. Yet, considering the gap between our financial goal … and our current operational costs, I decided that a substantial action to right size our costs was the best option to accomplish our objectives.” With the new layoffs, the company now expects to see a fourth quarter loss between $100 million to $117 million after previously anticipating a $40 million profit…Read more