EXCLUSIVE: Prime Video is at the moment starting job consultations with employees in Europe, we hear.
It’s understood a determine of lower than 5% of employees face layoffs via the cuts, which had been triggered earlier this yr when VP of Prime Video in EMEA Barry Furlong unveiled a restructure that impacts Europe, MENA and Africa.
The consultations are understood to be occurring throughout Prime Video’s European places of work, and people impacted are anticipated to be contacted at the moment. Employees influence is estimated to be within the double figures.
The cuts had been anticipated as a part of Prime Video’s worldwide restructuring, which is flip are a part of a discount of “a number of hundred roles” that will be eradicated throughout the Amazon content material group to scale back prices. Furlong informed employees in January that the modifications had been to “prioritize sources on what issues most to prospects” and “rebalance and pivot sources to concentrate on the areas that drive the best influence and long-term success.”
In January, we revealed Prime Video‘s groups in Africa and the Center East & North Africa areas had been dealing with layoffs, as a part of a wider restructure that “rebalanced” funding in the direction of Amazon’s European content material division.
The transfer break up Europe in two clusters, with “rising” territories similar to Benelux, the CEE and the Nordics getting new funding, and funding for Africa and MENA slashed. The 2 European clusters, EU Established (EU5) and EU Rising (EUX), are actually led by Brigitte Ricou-Bellan and Ritchie Ordonez, respectively.
Prime Video will appoint a Director of EU Content material & Programme Technique, who will lead a brand new strategic regional programming perform, working carefully with U.S. and worldwide colleagues on the content material pipeline from Amazon MGM Studios.
Amazon has been making cuts throughout its leisure footprint, with Deadline revealing layoffs had been additionally impacting Southeast Asia’s originals workforce, and throughout the U.S., the place the theatrical, unscripted and gaming unit Twitch items have been hit.
Amazon is hardly the one media firm to have made redundancies up to now yr, as financial headwinds and a transfer to profitability over subscriber development in streaming have led to powerful choices throughout the board. The likes of Paramount World, Viaplay, ProSiebenSat.1, Channel 4, Snap, Meta and Google have reduce employees for numerous causes.
