On the 4th, the CEO of the technology multinational Amazon (Amazon), Andy Jassy, said that Amazon will lay off 18,000 people. The “Wall Street Journal” also reported that people familiar with the matter have revealed that the layoffs of the multinational technology company Amazon (Amazon) will far exceed the previous target of 10,000 people.
The “Wall Street Journal” reported exclusively on the 4th, citing the latest statement of sources, that the new wave of layoffs will bring the layoffs to 17,000 people and will be completed in the coming weeks. Later, Amazon CEO Jassy announced that the company’s layoffs will affect more than 18,000 positions and will begin communicating with affected employees on the 18th of this month.
The report pointed out that as of September last year, Amazon, headquartered in Seattle, US, employed about 1.5 million people worldwide, and a large number of employees worked in warehouses. Amazon said in November it would begin laying off office-level workers, mainly in equipment, human resources and retail. At the time, both The Wall Street Journal and Reuters received word that the layoff target was 10,000 people.
During the COVID-19 period, consumption patterns have rapidly shifted towards online shopping and Amazon is one of the biggest beneficiaries. E-commerce, grocery retail, cloud data, and various surges have driven Amazon’s growth for many years. To keep up with demand, Amazon has doubled its logistics network and hired hundreds of thousands of workers.
However, the epidemic has started to slow down and the demand for online shopping has weakened and customers who prefer physical shopping have returned to their usual mode. Amazon examines the possibility of cutting costs by cutting unprofitable units. In the spring and summer of last year, Amazon made targeted cost reductions, closing brick-and-mortar stores and medical projects like Amazon Care; the second step was the announcement of a hiring freeze and finally announced the layoffs.
Many big tech companies are cutting back on their spending amid economic uncertainty. According to data released by layoffs.fyi, a layoff tracking website, Amazon’s layoffs will be the largest among tech companies in recent months.
Facebook’s parent company Meta previously announced it was laying off 11,000 employees, or 13% of its total workforce. US platform Lyft, technology companies Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Microsoft have also announced layoffs. Enterprise software company Salesforce also announced on the 4th that it would layoff 10% of its workforce, with CEO Marc Benioff acknowledging that the company hired too many people due to surging revenue in the early days of the pandemic.
