Amazon laying off several hundred employees in Prime Video, Studios divisions

globalnews.ca:

Amazon.com will lay off several hundred employees in its streaming and studio operations, it said in an internal note on Wednesday as companies extend their massive job cuts over the past two years into 2024.

The staff facing exit at Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios in the Americas will be informed on Wednesday and in most other regions by the end of the week.

The online retail behemoth has cut more than 27,000 jobs last year as part of a wave of U.S. tech layoffs after the industry hired heavily people during the pandemic.

“We’ve identified opportunities to reduce or discontinue investments in certain areas while increasing our investment and focus on content and product initiatives that deliver the most impact,” Mike Hopkins, senior vice president of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, told employees in a note seen by Reuters.

Global News asked the company if Canadian workers would be impacted and was pointed to the note to employees, which did not specify.

The company has spent aggressively in recent years to bolster its media business, including the $8.5 billion deal for MGM and around $465 million on the first season of “The Lord of
the Rings: The Rings of Power” on Prime Video in 2022.

It is also set to roll out an ad-free subscription tier for Prime Video in some market, similar to moves by rivals Netflix and Walt Disney.

After widespread job cuts in 2022 and 2023, many companies are now targeting select projects and divisions as they re-priorities their resources.

Amazon recently cut some jobs at its Alexa voice assistant division, while Microsoft removed some staff at its LinkedIn professional network.

Amazon’s Twitch service is set to lay off 500 employees, or about 35% of its workforce, according to a media