LOS ANGELES, California, United States?Sony Pictures Entertainment is to trim 450 jobs from its workforce, the studio said Monday, with executives citing online piracy and changing viewer habits as reasons for the cuts.

A company statement said a further 100 open positions will be closed, while the lay-offs?roughly 6.5 percent of the company's 6,800 workforce?would be completed by early March.

"The decision to take this step was difficult," studio chiefs Amy Pascal and Michael Lynton told employees in a memo released to media. "But it's being done in the context of a strategy designed to help us safeguard our competitiveness and chart our own course through these troubled waters."

The memo cited the changing media landscape as being part of the reason for the cuts, which would impact the company's home entertainment and IT divisions.

"The need is clear: from the growth of online piracy, to the social media effect on the performance of films, to the way people have changed how they watch television and acquire DVDs," it read.

"The business is going through a rough period of trial and transition, and we have an obligation to take the steps necessary to get through it."