Spotify announced that it will lay off 17% of its global workforce, marking the third round of layoffs in the music streaming service this year as the company moves to cut costs while focusing on becoming profitable.

In a message to employees published on the company's blog on Monday, CEO Daniel Ek said that the jobs would be cut as part of a "strategic realignment." The post did not specify the number of employees who will lose their jobs, but a company spokesperson confirmed the number to be around 1,500 people.

The blog post stated that Spotify used cheap financing to expand its business and "invested heavily" in employees, content, and marketing in 2020 and 2021.

However, Ek pointed out that the company stumbled when central banks started raising interest rates last year, which could slow economic growth. He said both are challenges.

He said, "We now find ourselves in a completely different environment. Despite efforts to cut costs last year, our cost structure relative to where we need to be is still far too large."

Ek said the company’s "smaller size" will ensure "Spotify’s continued profitability."

Stockholm-based Spotify recorded a net loss of 462 million euros (about 500 million dollars) for the nine months ending in September.

The company announced last January that it would cut 6% of its total staff, and in June, it reduced the number of employees by another 2%, or about 200 workers, mostly in its podcast division.

Technology companies such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta, and IBM have also announced layoffs of hundreds of thousands of jobs this year.