• According to people familiar with the matter, Twitch will be cutting as many as 500 jobs this week.
• This would mean as many as 1 000 Twitch staffers have lost their jobs since March 2023.
• The job cuts are expected to be announced on Wednesday.

Things aren’t going well in the technology sector as job cuts continue to leave hard working employees out of a job. The latest big-tech firm to be eyeing lay-offs is none other than Twitch.

While Twitch hasn’t officially announced job cuts, they are happening according to people close to the matter who spoke with Bloomberg (paywall). The streaming platform will reportedly announce on Wednesday that around 500 workers or 35 of Twitch staff will be jobless by the end of the week.

The situation at Twitch is rather tenuous. In 2023, Twitch laid off 400 employees and should these latest cuts come to fruition, as many as 1 000 jobs will have been cut from the platform. Add to this Twitch’s decision to leave the South Korean market because it’s no longer profitable to operate there.

There is also constant displeasure on the side of users who take umbrage to Twitch’s often ill-advised decisions. Late last year, Twitch decided to allow sexual content on the platform leading to near nudity and the suggestion of nudity on the platform. This was quickly walked back.

Beyond Twitch’s internal troubles, the platform faces increased competition in the live-streaming space from both Kick and YouTube. Kick has steadily lured top streamers to its platform with big pay cheques and more freedom.

While questions have been asked about Kick’s ties to gambling platform Stake, Kick is quickly becoming a destination for streamers. YouTube meanwhile seemed to be eyeing Twitch’s position in the livestreaming space and even signed exclusive deals with Twitch Golden Boy Ludwig Ahgren to stream exclusively on YouTube. That deal didn’t last very long and Ludwig recently announced he’d be streaming on both Twitch and YouTube.

It’s not clear which positions will be impacted by these forthcoming job cuts but we’re sure we’ll learn more as the week moves on.