Roku Inc. announced Thursday that it was set to lay off 200 employees joining other big tech companies in downsizing thanks to the slowing Biden economy and growing fears of inflation.
The streaming platform also announced that it would pay out up to $31 million in the fourth quarter for severance pay and costs related to the layoffs, which are expected to reduce staff by five percent, Reuters reported.
The company blamed “current economic conditions” for the job cuts and noted that its ad revenue has also fallen as advertisers tighten belts amid the growing recession.
Shares in Roku fell another two percent on Thursday, which figures into the 75 percent stock drop the company has suffered so far this year.
The announcement comes just weeks after the premiere of Weird, a Roku-produced feature film starring Daniel Radcliffe as “Weird Al” Yankovic.
Roku joins the likes of former Facebook company, Meta, which is reducing its workforce.
Meta cut 11,000 jobs this month, which is reportedly 13 percent of its workforce.
“Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected,” Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg said of his expectations of growth after the pandemic. “Not only has online commerce returned to prior trends, but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than I’d expected. I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that.”
Meta stock has tumbled 71 percent since the beginning of the year.
Big tech has been suffering all year. Even before Elon Musk took over Twitter, for instance, the social media giant had laid off 30 percent of its workforce in July.
Disney is also set to launch a wide-ranging campaign of layoffs as the company’s stock crashes.
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