Spotify has announced plans to cut six percent of its workforce in the coming months.
Up to 600 employees are about to leave the Swedish music streaming service, registered in the United States, along with its content director Don Ostroff.
CEO Daniel Ek wrote in a message to employees that the company is restructuring to promote “speed.”
He added: “While I think this is the right decision for Spotify, I understand that given our historical focus on growth, many of you will see this as a shift in our culture. But as we develop and grow as a business, so should our way of working, while remaining true to our core values.
“As you well know, over the past few months we have made significant efforts to reduce costs, but it was not enough.
“Like many other leaders, I hoped to weather the strong tailwind of the pandemic and believed that our broad global business and lower risk of exposure to slowing advertising would protect us. Looking back, I was too ambitious investing ahead of our revenue growth.”
It is expected that the company will cover expenses related to severance in the amount of 35 million euros (30.7 million pounds) to 45 million euros (39.6 million pounds).
In October, Spotify said it would slow down recruitment until the end of the year and until 2023.
Meanwhile, Universal Music Group recently faced a lawsuit over ownership of Spotify shares in relation to the fashion duo Black Sheep.
The duo, consisting of Andres Titus and William McLean, said that Universal owed them and other artists about $750 million (just under 630 million pounds) in unpaid royalties.
Black Sheep claim that this is due to the fact that UMG allegedly agreed to accept lower royalty rates from Spotify in exchange for shares in the streaming service back in 2008.
In other Spotify-related news, the streaming platform recently released a new feature called “Playlist in a Bottle” that allows users to create their own music time capsule, which will open next year.
