Key Highlights
- Barely 2 months after it laid off 18,000, Amazon is set to let go another 9,000 of its employees.
- While the January layoffs affected most people in Amazon Stores, the latest round will affect all its operating units, including AWS.
- The company blames its decision on economic uncertainties.
Tech giant, Amazon, has said it will eliminate 9,000 more positions in the company as it continues to battle for survival in the face of a tough economy.
The company, which sacked 18,000 earlier this January said the latest layoffs will affect all its operating units including AWS, PXT, Advertising, and Twitch.
In a memo to the company’s staff shared on its website, Amazon’s CEO, Andy Jassy said the decision was a difficult one but the “best for the company long term.” He said that most of the company’s businesses had added a significant amount of headcount for several years leading to this time.
Uncertain economy: While noting that the increase in headcount in the past was the right decision because of what was happening in the businesses and the economy as a whole during that period, Jassy said:
- “However, given the uncertain economy in which we reside, and the uncertainty that exists in the near future, we have chosen to be more streamlined in our costs and headcount.
- “The overriding tenet of our annual planning this year was to be leaner while doing so in a way that enables us to still invest robustly in the key long-term customer experiences that we believe can meaningfully improve customers’ lives and Amazon as a whole.”
- “As our internal businesses evaluated what customers most care about, they made re-prioritization decisions that sometimes led to role reductions, sometimes led to moving people from one initiative to another, and sometimes led to new openings where we don’t have the right skills match from our existing team members.
- This initially led us to eliminate 18,000 positions (which we shared in January); and, as we completed the second phase of our planning this month, it led us to these additional 9,000 role reductions (though you will see limited hiring in some of our businesses in strategic areas where we’ve prioritized allocating more resources),” he added.
Why the layoffs are in batches: Explaining why the company did not announce all the role reductions in January when it announced 18,000, Jassy said the teams were still analysing their staff needs at that time and the company chose to announce those that had been concluded at that time. so that the people could have the information as soon as possible.
- “The same is true for this note as the impacted teams are not yet finished making final decisions on precisely which roles will be impacted. Once those decisions have been made (our goal is to have this complete by mid to late April), we will communicate with the impacted employees (or where applicable in Europe, with employee representative bodies). We will, of course, support those we have to let go, and will provide packages that include a separation payment, transitional health insurance benefits, and external job placement support,” he said.
In November last year, Jassy said Amazon would eliminate roles, including at its physical stores and in its devices and books divisions. At the time, it was reported that Amazon was looking to lay off around 10,000 of its employees. The figure later came out higher at 18,000 when it was eventually announced in January this year. The latest round brings the total layoffs by Amazon to 27,000 in less than 3 months.
Meanwhile, Amazon is not the only one having a second headcount reduction. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, had also earlier this month announced a second round of layoffs that affected 10,000 employees. This came barely 4 months after it cut 11,000 jobs in November last year.
