Twitch Is Reportedly Laying Off 500 Workers, 35 Percent Of Staff

Last year was one of the worst in recent memory for people losing their jobs in the games industry, and there were growing concerns that things would only get worse before they got better. Unfortunately, it seems like this might be the case, as a new report has suggested that Twitch may be preparing to lay off a total of 500 workers as early as tomorrow, which is roughly 35 percent of the streaming platform's entire staff.

According to Bloomberg, these potential layoffs come as a result of concerns at Twitch over losses incurred throughout 2023, as well as the departures of several top executives over the course of a few months towards the end of the year. This new round of layoffs also comes less than one year after a prior wave of layoffs in early 2023 that saw around 400 people lose their jobs. All in all, Twitch will have cut almost 1,000 jobs in less than 12 months.

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Twitch has made it no secret that it's supposedly been struggling with its finances, having previously decided to shut down the platform entirely in Korea last year, leaving hundreds of streamers without a place to call home. Twitch stated that it had been operating at a loss in the region for many years, but ultimately decided to shut things down last year following failed efforts to reduce costs.

Coupled with the recent news that game engine maker Unity recently announced layoffs of 1,800 employees, 2024's total job losses in the games industry has already climbed to a depressingly high number not even two weeks in. It would be foolish to hope that things will get better from this point on, but here's hoping that the people that are affected find work somewhere else relatively soon.

While the exact number of job losses is still unknown, it is estimated that over 9,000 people were laid off throughout the course of 2023.

In other Twitch news, the continued rise of Twitch streamer PirateSoftware has resulted in the streaming platform's Hype Train record being completely smashed. After reveling in all the new attention, PirateSoftware revealed that their Hype Train raked in a whopping 7,321 new subscribers and over 1.8 million bits, which is roughly $22,000 for all of you not familiar with Twitch. Not bad for a day's work.

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