• Amazon Studios and Prime Video insiders expect layoffs this week.
• Amazon has laid off hundreds, however to date the leisure division has been unscathed.
• Studios has spent lavishly to ascertain Amazon as a participant in Hollywood.

After large layoffs throughout Amazon, hypothesis inside Prime Video and Amazon Studios has been mounting that their flip is subsequent, beginning as early as Wednesday. 

Amazon Studios is the TV and movie division and a supply of content material for Prime Video, one in every of a bundle of companies that drive Amazon Prime memberships ($139 per yr or $15 monthly within the US). 

One insider conversant in the state of affairs and who was given anonymity as a result of they don’t seem to be approved to discuss the corporate stated they anticipated the cuts to hit Prime Video in addition to Studios, noting that leaders from each organizations have been just lately known as to a gathering to speak layoffs to workers.

MGM can be seen as a goal for cuts. Amazon acquired it final yr for $8.45 billion and it’s normal for duplicative roles to be eradicated when an organization is acquired.   

“Like any business, we continue to monitor macroeconomic conditions and our business needs, and may adjust our hiring strategy and team sizing accordingly,” an Amazon spokesperson emailed.

Amazon’s entertainment business to date has been untouched by layoffs throughout the firm, which has joined the remainder of the tech business in massive layoffs. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy in March stated 9,000 folks could be laid off on high of a beforehand introduced layoff of 18,000. Divisions which have been impacted embrace promoting, video games, cloud computing, and retail. The firm general employed greater than 1.6 million on the finish of 2021.

As a high-profile however comparatively small unit of the trillion-dollar-plus Amazon, Prime Video is considerably insulated from the monetary pressures going through its leisure rivals.

With a mandate to ascertain itself in Hollywood with TV and movies that will gasoline Amazon’s Prime membership, Studios head Jen Salke has spent lavishly on content material and expertise. Under Jen Salke, Studios has ballooned by greater than 50%, to 1,500 staffers since 2018. 

But Hollywood is bracing for a potential writer’s strike that might begin as early as May, and a few business watchers suppose massive leisure firms like Amazon may use the strike as an excuse to scrap unproductive writers’ offers and different labor prices. Prime Video already has an enormous library to tug from within the occasion of a strike, together with a number of local-language worldwide exhibits, and leisure content material from its MGM buy.

Amazon is scheduled to report 1Q earnings on April 27.