Spotify lays off 200 people from podcasting team

The music and podcast-streaming service Spotify announced Monday it is laying off 200 people as it makes changes to its podcasting division.

“We are expanding our partnership efforts with leading podcasters from across the globe with a tailored approach optimized for each show and creator. This fundamental pivot from a more uniform proposition will allow us to support the creator community better. However, doing so requires adapting,” said Sahar Elhabashi, Spotify’s vice president and head of its podcast business, in an internal update.

“As a result, we have made the difficult but necessary decision to make a strategic realignment of our group and reduce our global podcast vertical and other functions by approximately 200 people, or 2% of Spotify’s workforce,” Elhabashi said.

The new layoffs come after the streaming service cut roughly 6 percent of its staff, about 600 workers, in January. CEO Daniel Ek said at the time the company had been “too ambitious in investing ahead of our revenue growth.”

Spotify holds the title of most-used audio podcast platform “in most corners of the world,” with more than 100 million listeners, Elhabasi said Monday, and podcast ad revenue also experienced high double-digit growth from 2021 to 2022.

Monday’s staff cut is the latest in a string of layoffs that have plagued the tech sector amid an uncertain economic picture.