Amazon Lays Off Hundreds of Staffers at Prime, Twitch, MGM

Amazon laid off “several hundred” employees on Wednesday in the MGM Studios, Prime Video, and Twitch divisions. Employees were let go in an email sent by Senior Vice President Mike Hopkins.

“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 personalized, easy to use entertainment experience for our global customers,” Hopkins wrote in the memo that was obtained by CNBC. “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 organization.”

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Hopkins called the decision to slash staffers “difficult” and noted that the layoffs were global and could take up to one week for all affected employees to be contacted.

“It is hard to say goodbye to talented Amazonians who’ve made meaningful contributions on behalf of our customers, team and business,” he said. “Thank you for your dedication and work.”

Separately, at the live-streaming unit Twitch, which Amazon acquired in 2014, 500 staffers were cut on Wednesday.

Last year, Amazon initiated the largest round of layoffs in company history when CEO Andy Jassy announced that the company would be letting go of 18,000 workers, citing a difficult economic time and rapid hirings in the years prior amid the pandemic.

Related: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy Is on a ‘Cost-Cutting’ Spree

Amazon had a strong Q3 2023 after jumping 13% in revenue amid cost-cutting initiatives.

“We had a strong third quarter as our cost to serve and speed of delivery in our Stores business took another step forward, our AWS growth continued to stabilize, our Advertising revenue grew robustly, and overall operating income and free cash flow rose significantly,” Jassy said at the time.

It’s estimated that the company has laid off 27,000 employees since last fall.

Amazon was up over 61% year over year as of Wednesday afternoon.