Twitch Plans Layoffs That Will Hit 35% of Staff

Twitch, the livestreaming platform owned by Amazon that remains unprofitable nearly a decade after the tech giant purchased it, plans to cut more than a third of its workforce, roughly 500 jobs, Bloomberg reports.

The cuts are the newest indication of turmoil at the site — and Amazon's growing unease about Twitch's inability to stem its losses. In the past year, several top executives have departed, and a month ago, Twitch said it would exit South Korea, a surprise move: South Korea is a top market for livestreaming, but even there, Twitch had been unable to push its operations out of the red.

Twitch already had two rounds of layoffs last year — cutting around 400 jobs — amid a turnaround led by new CEO Dan Clancy. Before Clancy's arrival in 2023, Twitch had suffered substantial criticism from the influencers on its platform over how it shared revenue, adding to the perception that the site was falling behind other rivals, including YouTube, which remains the most lucrative source of income for creators.