Jan. 10 (UPI) — Amazon is laying off “several hundred employees” in Prime Video and MGM Studios, according to a note sent to employees Wednesday.
“We’ve made the difficult decision to reduce the size of our workforce today,” Amazon Entertainment Chief Mike Hopkins said in an internal message reported by several media outlets.
The layoffs follow tens of thousands of Amazon-affiliate layoffs throughout 2022 and 2023, many in advertising, human resources and its cloud computing unit, in addition to Twitch, its gaming service.
“It is hard to say goodbye to talented Amazonians who’ve made meaningful contributions on behalf of our customers, team and businesses,” Hopkins said.
The company said employees in the Americas should be notified about their status Wednesday and that employees in other regions would be notified by the end of the week.
“We’ve identified opportunities to reduce or discontinue investments in certain areas while increasing our investment and focus on content and product initiatives that deliver the most impact. As a result of these decisions, we will be eliminating several hundred roles across the Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios organization,” Hopkins said.
Twitch also notified employees of layoffs, which will affect about 35% of the company’s workforce.
“I regret having to share that we are taking the painful step to reduce our headcount by just over 500 people across Twitch. This will be a very hard day,” CEO Dan Clancy said in a blog post Wednesday.
