Layoffs in the technology industry do not stop. Twitchthe largest live platform in the world, advertisement the dismissal of 500 employees. This figure represents, approximately, 35% of your staffwhich is a percentage as abysmal as it is worrying.
The unfortunate news, however, has not come as a total surprise within the company, since Bloomberg He had already announced that a new wave of layoffs was stalking the streaming video giant.
Dan Clancy, CEO of Twitch and who replaced Emmett Shear only in 2023, was in charge of communicating the decision to his workers. His speech, made public through the company blog, follows the line of other technology companies that have had to do without a fraction of their workforce.
Why did Twitch have to let go of so many employees? Clancy’s statement suggests that It is due to financial issues. It is well known that, despite its popularity, Twitch does not enjoy a very favorable economic status. They constantly make changes to their business model with the aim of improving their income without “harming” streamers. However, it is clear that the current strategy is not working.
“Today I have to share some incredibly difficult news. As you all know, we have been working hard over the last year to run our business as sustainably as possible. Unfortunately, we still have work to do to right-size our company and I am sorry to have “We have to share that we are taking the painful step of reducing our workforce by just over 500 people.”
Dan Clancy.
Twitch continues with its cost reduction strategy
So that, layoffs are part of cost reduction. At Twitch they consider that, given the size of their current business, it is not necessary to have a staff of that magnitude. “Over the last year, we have been working to build a more sustainable business so that Twitch can sustain itself in the long term, and throughout the year we have reduced costs and made many decisions to be more efficient. Unfortunately, despite these efforts, it has clear that our organization remains significantly larger than necessary given the size of our business,” Clancy said.
Be careful, the director of Twitch has made it clear that Twitch business remains “solid”. He highlighted that, over the last year, they paid more than $1 billion to streamers. However, right now they must think about how to remain sustainable in the future. “As with many other companies in the technology space, we are now sizing our organization based on the current scale of our business and predictions about how we expect to grow in the future,” he added.
Of course, saying goodbye to such a large number of employees will have a notable impact on Twitch’s day-to-day activity. In this sense, Clay said that they are in constant communication with the workers—those who are still there—to inform them how this movement will affect the operation of the platform.
“At this time, we are focused on communicating with our employees to provide them with clarity on how this affects each of them. We greatly value the employees we are saying goodbye to today, as people and professionals, and we appreciate all their efforts.
Dan Clancy.