Photo Credit: Thibault Penin
One month after commencing another round of podcasting-focused layoffs, this time within Parcast and Gimlet, Spotify has axed additional personnel yet.
The streaming giant’s latest staff cutbacks came to light in a (now-deleted) post on Blind, a self-described platform where “professionals worldwide share advice, provide honest perspectives, discuss company culture and discover relevant career information.”
Penned by an individual claiming to be a now-former Spotify employee, the message indicated that the Stockholm-based entity was laying off three-quarters of its “talent team,” or approximately 150 of 200 persons in the division. Notwithstanding the message’s aforesaid deletion, Blind itself summarized the purported Spotify team member’s remarks in a pair of tweets.
“Spotify is laying off circa 75% of their Talent Team. This is around 150 out of 200 people. 3 weeks severance pay. Source: Spotify employee on 🅱️,” wrote Blind, proceeding to elaborate on the reported layoffs in a follow-up tweet.
“Update: This was global office. Severance being 3 weeks was due to still being in probation despite being part of the mass layoff. Others who were outside probation were given 2 months of pay then a 2 month pay lump sum on top,” Blind concluded.
Meanwhile, a Spotify spokesperson has addressed (and seemingly confirmed) the layoffs in a statement provided to ProPakistani, the outlet relayed.
“The Blind post is factually incorrect and overstates the scope of the impacted group, which in fact, was a minority of the TA team,” this Spotify spokesperson is said to have communicated. “And while there is a variation in severance, The Blind’s story underestimated it as we’re paying everyone through the holidays and severance on top.”
Beyond this statement, Spotify – which reduced its hiring over the summer – doesn’t appear to have commented on the matter via its social profiles or an official blog post. But on LinkedIn, a number of individuals are disclosing that they have departed Spotify as a result of the new layoffs.
In keeping with the tweets from Blind, most of the professionals at hand appear to work in recruiting. Additionally, the vast majority of the parties joined Spotify less than one year ago, according to their LinkedIn profiles.
During today’s trading hours, Spotify stock (NYSE: SPOT) touched a record low of $69.28 per share before rebounding slightly to finish the day at $71.40 per share. And this morning, amid widespread layoffs throughout the broader tech industry, Facebook parent Meta trimmed its ranks by about 11,000 employees, a multitude of recruiters among them.