Status: 11/14/2022 20:50
First the parent of Twitter and Facebook Meta, now Amazon: the online giant wants to cut around 10,000 jobs, US media report. The device division in particular is said to be affected by the cuts.
Job cuts at big tech companies in the US appear to be continuing: According to US media reports, the world’s largest online mail order company, Amazon, is planning its biggest job cuts yet today in view of the gloomy economic outlook. The group wants to start cutting about 10,000 jobs this week, reported the New York Times. The newspaper relies on insiders.
The centerpiece of the cuts is the widely distributed group’s loss-making device division, which also includes “Alexa” voice control and the Echo smart speaker. The New York Times claims that the reduction, the exact extent of which has not yet been determined, corresponds to about three percent of the total workforce.
Amazon has imposed a hiring freeze
Financial Service Bloomberg later reported according to its own sources. According to the Wall Street Journal, “thousands” of jobs are at stake. Amazon initially did not comment. The group recently had around 1.5 million employees worldwide.
The company had already warned investors of a weak last quarter and decided in early November to stop hiring in view of the increased risks of inflation and recession. Amazon is under pressure to cut costs after a spending offensive amid the pandemic. The stock is down more than 40% this year.
Companies want to cut costs
Before Christmas, for which Amazon often hires reinforcements, the job cuts would be another signal for the sudden end of the tech job boom. The line of US companies announcing layoffs is getting longer. Some of the big tech companies are currently trying to cut costs and have announced job cuts, such as Facebook parent Meta and Twitter, the short-messaging platform taken over by Tesla boss Elon Musk.
