Several employees have already lost their jobs and this is just the first month of 2024. Amazon, Google and Duolingo, as businesses are looking to “rightsize” their workforces and cut costs to facilitate the running of their businesses.
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According to a publication, Twitch, a live streaming site owned by Amazon, announced plans to cut 35% of its staff (roughly 500 employees), CEO Dan Clancy said in a blog post Wednesday, saying Twitch has “work to do to rightsize” the company, calling it “meaningfully larger than it needs to be given the size of our business,” while Amazon’s audiobook division Audible also conducted a round of cuts affecting 100 employees.
That same day, Amazon announced plans to cut “several hundred” employees at its Prime Video and MGM Studios divisions, following a review of “nearly every aspect” of the company’s business operations, according to a memo obtained by Forbes from Mike Hopkins, the senior vice president of Prime Video (shares of Amazon have inched up 2% on the year, to $154.62).
On Wednesday, Google laid off “hundreds” of employees across several divisions, including its engineering and hardware teams, as well as employees developing its voice-operated virtual assistant, Google Assistant, according to an internal email obtained by the New York Times and Semafor (Google’s shares price has climbed 2.85% this year, to $142.65).
Language learning app Duolingo slashed 10% of its contract employees (it’s not immediately clear how many workers this affects), as the company pivots toward relying on artificial intelligence for content generation, multiple outlets reported, though the company said none of its full-time employees would be affected by the layoffs (shares of Duolingo have slumped 6.54% on the year, to $212).
AI startup Humane also said this week it will cut 4% of its workforce (10 employees), with company founder and CEO Bethany Bongiorno writing on LinkedIn the cuts are part of an initiative that includes “some changes to best prepare us for continued growth.”
Discord CEO Jason Citron announced this week the platform will cut 17% of its workforce (roughly 170 employees) to “sharpen [its] focus and improve the way [it] work[s] together to bring more agility” to the company, The Verge reported.
Video game software developer Unity Software announced in a regulatory filing it will cut one-quarter of its staff (roughly 1,800 jobs) as part of a restructuring plan to “position itself for long-term and profitable growth” (Shares of Unity have dropped nearly 13.5% on the year, to just over $34).
Banking giant Citigroup announced Friday it will cut 20,000 employees over the next two years, according to a statement from CFO Mark Mason, following a $1.8 billion fourth quarter net loss, the bank’s worst quarter in 15 years. Citigroup’s cuts follow a string of layoffs at major U.S. banks, following investment banking firm Goldman Sachs, which cut 4,000 employees last year, and JPMorgan Chase, which let go of 1,000 employees in May.
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