Prime Video Lays Off Over Hundred Employees Again For Fresh Start

Amazon is set to lay off employees again as it announced a fresh round of job cuts affecting ‘several hundred’ employees from its streaming and studio operations i.e from its Prime Video and MGM Studios division.

In an internal memo sent to Amazon employees on Wednesday, Mike Hopkins, the SVP of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, informed the employees that the company has conducted several reviews and identified areas where it can reduce or discontinue investments to focus on improving the platform. Hence, it is reducing the workforce as part of restructuring and optimising the business.

“Throughout the past year, we’ve looked at nearly every aspect of our business with an eye towards improving our ability to deliver even more breakthrough movies, TV shows, and live sports in a personalised, easy to use entertainment experience for our global customers,” reads the memo by Hopkins .

“As a result, 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. As a result of these decisions, we will be eliminating several hundred roles across the Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios organisation.”While the exact numbers of the impacted employees from this layoffs drive are not disclosed by Amazon, the company told IndieWire that the layoffs will be impacting a relatively small percentage of Hopkins’ team. Significantly, Amazon acquired MGM for $8.5 billion in 2022.

According to the company, the latest round of layoffs was also influenced by the deal, citing lingering challenges arising from that acquisition.

According to Hopkins, impacted Amazon staff members will be notified about their layoff by Thursday morning, and the outreach will be completed in the morning. Meanwhile, the company is also reviewing its Amazon’s FAST service, Freevee.

The latest round of Amazon layoffs comes on the same day when Amazon’s subsidiary, the live-streaming company Twitch, also announced it will lay off around 35 per cent of its workforce, which is around 500 employees.

Twitch CEO also Dan Clancy announced the job cuts in a message to staffers, calling it a painful step.

The company had already reduced its workforce by 400 in March 2023 as part of a larger downsizing at Amazon, its owner.

Many senior leaders also departed at that time. Twitch said it would exit South Korea the previous month due to expensive network charges.

Meanwhile, as for the total number of layoffs at Amazon, the tech giant cut more than 27,000 jobs last year as part of the layoffs wave that swept across Silicon Valley and global offices. The decision was parallel to the mass layoffs announced by Facebook and Microsoft; each laid off 10,000 workers last year, and Google cut 12,000.