After Meta and Twitter significantly started laying off their employees, tech giant Amazon also plans to trim its workforce. According to the New York Times, Amazon plans to lay off approximately 10,000 people in corporate and technology jobs starting this week.
The NYT said in its report on Monday that the total number of layoffs remains fluid, the 10,000 people who could be let go represent roughly three per cent of Amazon's corporate employees and less than one per cent of its global workforce of more than 1.5 million composed primarily of hourly workers.
The trimming of the workforce will also take place in Amazon's other organisations including voice-assistant Alexa as well as its retail and human resources.
Earlier Twitter CEO Elon Musk had laid off almost half of the company's workforce. Meta too announced that it will lay off 13 per cent of its workforce.
The report of impending layoffs at Amazon also comes on the day its founder Jeff Bezos told CNN he plans to give away the majority of his USD 124 billion net worth to charity within his lifetime, reported PTI.
The NYT also reported that from April through September, the tech giant reduced its headcount by almost 80,000 people, primarily shrinking its hourly staff through high attrition.
Amazon froze hiring in several smaller teams in September. In October, it stopped filling more than 10,000 open roles in its core retail business. Two weeks ago, it froze corporate hiring across the company, including its cloud computing division, for the next few months. That news came so suddenly that recruiters did not receive talking points for job candidates until almost a week later, NYT reported.
Amazon's planned retrenchment during the critical holiday shopping season when the company typically has valued stability shows how quickly the souring global economy has put pressure on it to trim businesses that have been overstaffed or underdelivering for years, NYT reported.
During the pandemic years, when online shopping peaked Amazon had doubled its workforce and profit was gained by the tech giant. However, the scenario changed when offline shopping picked up after Covid restrictions were eased across the countries.
Amazon's retail business covering its physical and online retail business and its logistics operations has been under strain" after the surge of demand and breakneck expansion during the pandemic, NYT said.
We're realistic that there are various factors weighing on people's wallets, Brian Olsavsky, the finance chief, told investors last month, according to the NYT report. He said the company was unsure where spending was heading, but we're ready for a variety of outcomes.
The NYT report added that in recent months, Amazon has shut down or pared back several of its initiatives, including Amazon Care, which provided primary and urgent health care after it failed to find enough customers. The report also said that Amazon doubled its staff on Alexa and Echo devices to 10,000 engineers from 2017 to 2018.
(With inputs from PTI)
