Amazon will axe 17 000 jobs.
The e-retail giant – which has a workforce of over 1.5 million people all over the world- did not clarify where the cuts will come from location-wise but expressed the “uncertain economy” as the reason for the shavings in their consumer retail and human resources departments.
Andy Jassey wrote in a memo to staff: “We don’t take these decisions lightly or underestimate how much they might affect the lives of those who are impacted”
The CEO – who replaced the founder Jeff Bezos – explained he was alerting everyone of the plans due to an unapproved leak as he gave himself a deadline of 18 January 2023 to iron out all the details of the layoffs.
He said:
“We typically wait to communicate about these outcomes until we can speak with the people who are directly impacted. However, because one of our teammates leaked this information externally, we decided it was better to share this news earlier so you can hear the details directly from me. We intend on communicating with impacted employees (or where applicable in Europe, with employee representative bodies) starting on January 18.”
Andy continued:
“Companies that last a long time go through different phases. They’re not in heavy people expansion mode every year.”
This comes after Amazon experienced a rise in sales during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic due to social distancing measures that closed brick-and-mortar rivals and saw people spend much more time at home.
It also follows the trend of other tech companies seeing a dip in sales revenues and a weakening of consumer demand due to the increasing cost of living, like Meta – which owns and operates Instagram, Facebook and Whatsapp – and Twitter.