Spotify is slowing hiring by 25%, CEO Daniel Ek said in an email to employees on Wednesday.
It’s the latest signal that companies across tech, many of which grew significantly over the early stages of the pandemic, are cutting back on staff growth as economic uncertainty looms. While job growth across the economy has remained strong, there have been several high-profile hiring slowdowns or staff cuts in the tech sector in recent months, including layoffs at Coinbase and scaled-down recruitment at Facebook owner Meta.
The economic outlook remains unclear, driving some companies to slow down and take stock of their current staffing. Earlier this week, the S&P 500 fell into bear market territory, when stocks fall at least 20% below recent highs, and the Federal Reserve Wednesday announced a large interest rate hike to ease surging inflation.
Spotify spokesperson Adam Grossberg pointed to comments from CFO Paul Vogel at the company’s investor day, where he said, “We are clearly aware of the increasing uncertainty regarding the global economy. And 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.”
In the email to employees, Ek said Spotify would “reduce hiring growth by 25%.” But he said the company would “continue to still hire and grow, we are just going to slow that pace and be a bit more prudent with the absolute level of new hires over the next few quarters.”
Grossberg declined to detail what the 25% reduction in hiring growth would entail.
—CNBC’s Steve Kovach contributed to this report.
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect the correct attribution of a quote to Spotify’s CFO.
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