Amazon to lay off several hundred staff in Prime Video, Studios divisions

(Reuters) -Amazon.com will lay off several hundred employees in its streaming and studio operations, it said in an internal note on Wednesday as companies extend their massive job cuts over the past two years into 2024.

The staff facing exit at Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios in the Americas will be informed on Wednesday and in most other regions by the end of the week.

The online retail behemoth has cut more than 27,000 jobs last year as part of a wave of U.S. tech layoffs after the industry hired heavily people during the pandemic.

"We've identified opportunities to reduce or discontinue investments in certain areas while increasing our investment and focus on content and product initiatives that deliver the most impact," Mike Hopkins, senior vice president of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, told employees in a note seen by Reuters.

The company has spent aggressively in recent years to bolster its media business, including the $8.5 billion deal for MGM and around $465 million on the first season of "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" on Prime Video in 2022.

(Reporting by Yuvraj Malik in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar and Arun Koyyur)