A Little Knowledge... #44

Welcome to A Little Knowledge #44 – our free weekly LinkedIn newsletter.

?? BULLETIN NEWS – Spotify to lay off around 17% of its staff

On Monday last week, Spotify announced its third round of layoffs of 2023, and these ones are the biggest yet.?

• The company is laying off around 17% of its staff, with CEO Daniel Ek confirming the figure in a memo to employees that?has?also been published on Spotify's blog.
• "Economic growth has slowed dramatically and capital has become more expensive. Spotify is not an exception to these realities," wrote Ek.
• 17% of Spotify's headcount is around 1,500 employees.?
• Spotify?laid off around 6% of its workforce in January this year, which was around 600 employees at the time.?Another 200 people (around 2% of the workforce at the time) lost their jobs in June?as part of a reorganisation of Spotify's podcasts business.
• This means around 2,300 layoffs over 2023 as a whole, which is 27.5% of the 8,359 full-time employees working for Spotify at the end of 2022?according to its annual report for that year.
• Music Ally understands that this week’s layoffs are spread across the company rather than focused on particular divisions.
• "Despite?our efforts to reduce costs this past year, our cost structure for where we need to be is still too big," wrote Ek in his memo today. "When we look back on 2022 and 2023, it has truly been impressive what we have accomplished. But, at the same time, the reality is much of this output was linked to having more resources. By most metrics, we were more productive but less efficient. We need to be both," he continued.
• Later in the week, the company confirmed the anticipated costs of these layoffs will be?between €130m and €145m this quarter in charges.
• Layoffs are difficult whatever time of the year they happen, but before Christmas is a particularly tough time. Our thoughts are with affected employees.?

???Read our analysis in full, including more from CEO Daniel Ek’s memo,?here.

?? COUNTRY PROFILE: ?Ethiopia?could one day offer considerable opportunity to the global music industry.

Country?Profiles?are?one of our most popular and data- and insight-rich resources. Our reports are based on speaking to?the?people on?the?ground, and are packed with info you need to know.

• Ethiopia remains a poor, largely rural, country. But, with the right structure in place, it could one day offer considerable opportunity to the global music industry.?
• Ethiopia is the second most populous country in Africa, with a population of almost 117m. And yet, since the glory days of Ethio-jazz in the 1960s and 70s, the country’s music industry has been a mystery to the global business.
• Much of this is down to a lack of infrastructure. YouTube is by far and away the most popular digital channel for music in Ethiopia, with young musicians using the platform to share their music
• But in general, subscription is impossible, due to the banking system and the high cost of internet access.?

???Subscribers can?read?the?country profile in full?here???,?and?the?Ethiopia?page, which collects all Ethiopia-focused news in one place,?is?accessible to everyone.

?? MUSIC ALLY JOBS

The latest and best jobs for the global music business, trusted by both top music industry companies and experienced professionals on top of their game.

Are you looking for a job? Click here to see the full list of vacancies!

??? A LITTLE SOMETHING EXTRA...

?And finally… our daily Bulletin newsletter is loved by subscribers for its instant industry analysis - but secretly, the part they like most is the ‘A Little Something Extra’ section at the bottom of the email. Here's a few of the best recent links:

• If football pundits talked like art historians.
• Today's 'yes I have lots of work to do but this is a much more important and pressing duty' is?contributing to crowdsourced Lego minifigures rankings.
• The 100 worst wrestling gimmicks ever, from mantaurs, crap rappers, riverdancers and farting to, er, Ku Klux Klan outfits and Nazis.

This is only a glimpse into this week's The Knowledge newsletter – subscribe for FREE?and every Friday it’ll arrive in your inbox with:

??Exclusive access to selected courses in our LEARNING HUB; ????The best new platforms in TOOLS;??? Highlights from our latest COUNTRY PROFILE REPORTS;?????Some great and/or strange music in SOMETHING 4 THE WEEKEND; ??A look back in TIME MACHINE; ??The Music Ally Focus PODCAST; and????more links to our favourite unusual stuff in A LITTLE SOMETHING EXTRA.