As part of a previously publicised personnel reduction, Amazon.com Inc. will now be eliminating more than 18,000 employees, according to Chief Executive Andy Jassy in a public staff letter on Wednesday. The company’s e-commerce and human resources departments will be the most affected by the layoff choices, which Amazon will announce starting on January 18, he added.
The reductions, which reflect a quick flip for a retailer that recently quadrupled its base pay threshold to compete more fiercely for talent, account for 6% of Amazon’s approximately 300,000-person corporate workforce.
Annual planning “has been more arduous given the volatile economy and that we’ve hired rapidly over the last several years,” Jassy wrote in the note.
Amazon is the second-largest private employer in America after Walmart, which boasts more than 1.5 million employees, including warehouse staff (WMT.N). Rising inflation compelled firms and consumers to cut back on spending, and its share price fell by half in the previous year, which has prepared for expected slower growth.
In 2023, tech corporations are continuing where they left off in their preparations for a protracted economic crisis. Salesforce announced on Wednesday that it would lay off nearly 7,000 workers, or 10% of its workforce. Salesforce and Amazon both acknowledged that they hired too quickly during the outbreak.
As more customers switched to online ordering, Amazon particularly recognised that it had increased the number of employees in its facilities too hastily. 1.54 million workers were employed by the corporation at the completion of the third quarter.
Amazon has already survived unstable and challenging economies, and we will do the same in the future, Jassy stated. He was also certain that the firm would be creative, innovative, and resourceful in this period when we were not hiring widely and removing some roles. These changes will allow the firm to pursue our long-term prospects with a stronger cost structure.
