As per reports, Twitch is planning to lay off 35% of its workforce

Twitch, owned by Amazon, is reportedly laying off 35% (around 500 people) of its employees. Bloomberg reported the story, citing “people familiar with the matter.” The move follows a 400-person decrease in staff in 2023 and Twitch’s decision to terminate operations in Korea. The layoffs might be announced on Wednesday, but no additional information was supplied, including who would be affected.

The move was apparently made due to worries over Twitch’s losses, which have yet to turn profitable nine years after Amazon purchased it for roughly $1 billion. The site’s operating expenditures are enormous, given that it provides around 1.8 billion hours of live video material every month. Twitch was forced to leave South Korea due to a similar situation, albeit CEO Dan Clancy stated that expenditures there are “ten times more expensive” than in other nations.

Several senior executives left the firm around the end of last year, including its chief product officer, chief customer officer, chief revenue officer, and chief content officer. Clancy has been CEO for less than a year, having taken over for co-founder and CEO Emmett Shear in March 2023.

Twitch has altered the way it performs advertising and compensates streams in recent years in a bid to increase profitability. Back in 2022, the platform had over 50,000 partner creators, and many commended Clancy for taking a more hands-on approach and responding to their issues.

Parent Amazon has been on a cost-cutting spree, laying off 27,000 employees in the previous two years, with another 9,000 thrown off in 2023. This is part of a broader decline in technology, with large-scale layoffs at Google, Meta, Spotify, Epic Games, Unity, and others last year.