Following the company’s biggest round of layoffs ever, Amazon.com Inc. is now letting go of an additional 9,000 employees.
How Did This Happen?
Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy informed the company’s employees on Monday that layoffs would be happening in the upcoming weeks, specifically affecting groups such as Amazon Web Services, human resources, advertising, and Twitch livestreaming service.
In his memo, Jassy cited the uncertain economy and future as the reasons for the cuts, saying that the company needs to be more cost-efficient.
The news was later published on Amazon’s corporate blog.
It seems that Amazon has primarily been letting go of corporate employees following a hiring surge during the pandemic, which left the company with an excess of resources.
In the previous month, Amazon finished a round of layoffs that impacted roughly 18,000 employees.
These job cuts disproportionately affected the company’s recruiting and human resources teams, as well as its expansive retail and devices groups.
After experiencing a 16% increase this year, Amazon’s shares declined by 1.7% to $97.29 at 11:25 a.m. in New York.
Facebook Laying Off 10000 Employees
It is noteworthy that Amazon’s announcement of job cuts comes less than a week after Meta Platforms Inc., the owner of Facebook, revealed its own plan to lay off 10,000 employees and eliminate approximately 5,000 vacant positions in its second major round of job cuts.
During an internal meeting, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg warned that the economic climate of restructuring and layoffs could persist “many years”.
In addition to Meta and Amazon, other prominent tech companies such as Alphabet Inc.
(the parent company of Google), Microsoft Corp, Dell Technologies Inc., and International Business Machines Corp. have also reduced their headcounts in recent times.
According to data compiled by Bloomberg, over 67,000 jobs have been cut across the tech industry since the beginning of this year, as of early February. D.A.
Davidson analyst Tom Forte noted that he was not surprised by Amazon’s announcement, citing concerns about a potential recession.
This trend follows a worrying pattern from 2022, when the tech sector announced 97,171 job cuts, a 649% increase compared to the previous year, according to consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.
Last month, Amazon warned that its operating profit may continue to decline in the current quarter due to the financial impact of reduced spending by consumers and cloud customers.
Additionally, the company has recently scaled back or discontinued entire services, such as its virtual primary care offering for employers.
