Image: EPA-EFE/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK Jobs at MGM, Prime Video, and Twitch are cut by Amazon. Hundreds of employees will be let go by Amazon in its studios, Twitch, Prime Video, and MGM. CEO Dan Clancy has announced that around 500 Twitch workers—a third of the streaming platform’s workforce—will be let go. According to Amazon, another hundred workers at MGM Studios and Prime Video will likewise lose their jobs this week. Despite record revenues, the IT behemoth let go of more than 27,000 employees in 2023. When Twitch first launched, users could watch and discuss online video gameplay. In 2014, Amazon purchased it for $970 million (£585 million at the time). Mr. Clancy stated he was taking the “painful step to reduce our headcount” in an email to staff members in an effort to “build a more sustainable business”. The business, he continued, gave streamers $1 billion in 2023, but it had “conservative predictions of how we expect to grow in the future.” Amazon’s most recent earnings report shows that the company made $9.9 billion in profit from July to September. It increased from $2.9 billion over the same time frame in 2022. Senior vice president of the division Mike Hopkins wrote the following to staff members at Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios via email: “We’ve identified opportunities to reduce or discontinue investments in certain areas while increasing our investments and focus on content and product initiatives that deliver the most impact. “ It was a “difficult decision to make,” Mr. Hopkins continued. The email stated that employees both domestically and internationally are impacted by job losses. In 2021, Amazon acquired the century-old MGM Studios for a sum of $8.45 billion. It declared in December of last year that it would begin airing advertisements on Prime Video on February 5, 2024. The layoffs at Amazon are the most recent in a lengthy line of layoffs in the technology industry, which had grown quickly as more people used digital services during the epidemic but then shrank when that enthusiasm subsided. US employment consulting firm Challenger, Grey & Christmas reports that the tech industry eliminated 168,032 jobs in 2023, a 73% increase from 2022.
