According to the article, the cuts would be the biggest in the company’s history and
would mostly affect Amazon’s devices department, retail division, and human
resources. Less than 1% of Amazon’s global workforce and 3% of its corporate
personnel would be affected by the alleged layoffs.
The report comes after layoffs at other tech companies. More than 11,000
employees at Meta were laid off last week, according to the firm’s announcement.
Twitter cut over half of its workforce in the days after Elon Musk paid $44 billion to
acquire the company.
As of December 31, 2021, Amazon has 1.6 million full- and part-time employees, a
102% increase from the 798,000 employees it claimed at the end of 2019. The total
number of layoffs “remains flexible,” according to the New York Times, and might filuctuate
An inquiry for comment was not immediately answered by an Amazon
representative.
Amazon relies heavily on the holiday shopping season, and to satisfy demand, the
corporation typically increases staffing levels during this time. However, since
assuming the position of CEO in July 2021, Andy Jassy has been actively reducing
costs to protect the company’s cash flow as it deals with sluggish sales and a dour
global economy.
The corporation has already made preparations to halt corporate hiring in its retail
division. In recent months, Amazon has terminated its telemedicine service,
cancelled or postponed the opening of some new warehouse locations, closed all but
one of its U.S. call centres, killed off its roving delivery robot, and shuttered
underperforming brick-and-mortar chains.
In October, Amazon released poor third-quarter earnings that alarmed investors and
sent its shares plunging more than 13%. It was the second time this year that
Amazon’s results have been sufficient to provoke a double-digit percentage sell-off,
and it was the first time the company’s market capitalization went below $1 trillion
since April 2020. Days following the report, the stock’s epidemic rise was nearly
completely erased by the sell-off that persisted for days.
The price of Amazon stock has fallen by approximately 41% so far this year, more
than the S&P 500’s 14% decline, and it is on track to have its worst year since 2008.
According to reports, Amazon will begin firing approximately 10,000 workers this week.
According to a story from The New York Times, Amazon intends to fire roughly
10,000 workers in business and technical roles starting this week. Separately, The
Wall Street Journal cited a person who claimed the business intended to fire thousands of workers.