Twitch is now confirming the company's massive layoffs reported by Bloomberg, with more than 500 employees (roughly one-third of the total workforce) to be laid off.

"Over the last year, we have been working to build a more sustainable business for Twitch's long-term viability, and throughout the year we have made many decisions to cut costs and become more efficient," CEO Daniel Clancy said on Twitch's wrote in a message to employees that was also published on his blog. Unfortunately, despite these efforts, it has become clear that our organization is still larger than it needs to be given the size of our business."

"Last year we paid out over $1 billion to streamers. So while Twitch's business remains strong, for some time now, the size of our organization has been based not on where we are today, but on our optimistic projections for our business over the next three years. Like many other firms in the technology sector, we are currently sizing our organization based on the current size of the business and conservative projections of how it will grow in the future.

Clancy said that "just over 500 people across Twitch" will lose their jobs.

The news comes just two days after game engine developer Unity announced it would lay off 25% of its workforce as a "company reset," following a year of massive layoffs across its gaming and technology divisions that affected tens of thousands of workers.

Twitch's parent company laid off 180 employees from Amazon Games in November, a relatively small number compared to the 27,000 workers cut in early 2023. in March 2023, longtime CEO Emmett Shea left the company after 16 years shortly after he left the company, and this mass layoff also had a dramatic impact on Twitch, affecting 400 people. The layoffs were not the only sign of trouble for Twitch, as the platform recently decided to pull out of South Korea, where high network fees forced the company to operate at a loss.

Despite the size of the layoffs, Twitch streamers will not be affected: Clancy stated that the layoffs were made "to ensure that we can continue to sustainably serve our streamers without affecting their ability to support their Twitch careers."

Clancy added, "We are also reducing the number of employees at Twitch.