Spotify announces it's firing 17% of its total staff due to the 'challenges ahead'

In what marks the third time this year, Spotify has announced it will be laying off 1,500 employees that have already been notified of their departure.

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The news of the layoffs comes from company CEO Daniel Ek, who explained in a newsroom post that the cuts of 17% of the company's workforce was decidedly made to be immediate instead of incrementally over time. This decision was made by Ek, who wrote that he considered Spotify's financial goal state and its current operational costs, and elected to "right-size our costs" to "accomplish our objective".

Additionally, Ek explained that the workforce reduction of this caliber might come as a surprise to many employees considering the "recent positive earnings report and our performance". However, Spotify's CEO writes that this decision was made to close the gap "between our financial goal state and our current operational costs."

"Our cost structure for where we need to be is still too big," said Ek

Ek said to make the situation somewhat good for the now 1,500 people unemployed, it will be paying five months severance cover healthcare during that time, and will provide immigration/career support.