Spotify Technology SA will slow hiring in the coming months by 25 percent due to deteriorating macroeconomic conditions, Chief Executive Daniel Ek wrote in a memo to employees cited today (June 15) by various media.
The audio-streaming service has been on a “hiring spree,” adding 2,000 employees from 2019 through 2021 and bringing the company’s headcount to 6,617 as of the end of calendar 2022, Bloomberg reported.
“While we have yet to see any material impact to our business, we are keeping a close eye on the situation and evaluating our headcount growth in the near term,” Chief Financial Officer Paul Vogel recently told investors, according to Bloomberg.
Independent of dealing with economic challenges, Spotify and other tech companies such as Yelp recently took steps to curb the power of potential competitors in big-tech. Earlier this week (June 13), reports emerged that Spotify and other companies had asked Congress to rein in big technology firms such as Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook parent Meta.
Read more: Spotify, Yelp, Others Urge Senate to Rein in Big Tech
Also on this week (June 13), Spotify announced its acquisition of Sonantic, a firm specializing in voice-related artificial intelligence. The streaming company stated in announcing the purchase that it would use AI capabilities to improve user actions, for example letting Spotify make suggestions using audio instead text on screens.
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See also: Spotify to Acquire AI Text-to-Voice Platform Sonantic
“When you ask our listeners what they most admire about Spotify, more than 81 percent cite our personalization,” Ek said in his remarks at the company’s Investor Day on June 8.
Shares in Spotify closed up 7.45 percent today (June 15) as the technology-heavy Nasdaq index closed up 2.5 percent, according to Google Finance data.
