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The Story: Spotify just announced its third round of big layoffs at the company in just this year alone.

Yesterday, the audio streaming platform said it would be cutting 17% of its staff, roughly 1,500 employees.

Earlier in 2023, the cuts began at Spotify with an initial layoff of 600 employees, and then continued with another 200 after efficiency and profitability issues. The most recent large round of layoffs is somewhat unexpected not long after Spotify posted $34 million in operating income in October, its first profitable quarter since 2021.

The company’s CEO Daniel Ek says the primary reason for the layoffs is the slowing economic growth of the company. According to Axios’ Sara Fischer, Ek said that Spotify “debated making smaller reductions throughout 2024 and 2025, but decided that a substantial action to rightsize our costs was the best option to accomplish our objectives.”

Mass tech layoffs in 2023 continue as the year closes. Spotify and others like Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, and Salesforce have seen combined cuts of tens of thousands of jobs just this year.

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