• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, January 12, 2024

Podcasting and online audiobook service Audible is the latest Amazon business to be hit with layoffs.

Audible is laying off about 5% of its workforce, the company’s CEO, Bob Carrigan, said in a memo to staff.

Carrigan did not specify the actual number of staff affected.

The Audible layoffs news follows Amazon announcements earlier this week of “several hundred” layoffs at Prime Video and about 500 at Twitch.

In all cases, management cited increasing efficiency as the reason for the layoffs.

“Our business is in good shape, and that is because of the hard work of each and every one of you,” Carrigan wrote. “However, to position us for continued success in the coming year and into the future, given the increasingly challenging landscape we face, we have to take this difficult decision now… we did not take this route without considerable thought. But getting leaner and more efficient is the way we will need to operate now — and in the foreseeable future — in order to continue delivering best-in-class audio storytelling to our customers around the world.

Amazon acquired Audible for about $300 million in 2008.

Amazon cut 27,000 jobs during 2022 and 2023, in a painful pullback following massive expansion investments during the pandemic.