- Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) plans to lay off approximately 10,000 people in corporate and technology jobs starting this week, marking the most significant job cuts in the company’s history.
- The cuts will focus on Amazon’s devices organization, including the voice-assistant Alexa, as well as on its retail division and human resources, the New York Times reported.
- The total number of layoffs remains fluid. But if it stays around 10,000, that would represent roughly 3% of Amazon’s corporate employees and less than 1% of its global workforce of more than 1.5 million, primarily composed of hourly workers.
- Amazon’s planned retrenchment during the critical holiday shopping season reflected how quickly the souring global economy had pressured it to trim businesses that have been overstaffed or underdelivering for years.
- Amazon would also become the latest technology company to lay off workers, which only recently it had been fighting to retain. Earlier this year, the e-commerce giant more than doubled the cap on cash compensation for its tech workers.
- Elon Musk halved Twitter’s headcount this month after buying the company, and last week, Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META), the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, shared plans of laying off 11,000 employees, about 13%.
- Last week, Amazon executives met with institutional investors just as its stock sank to its lowest level since the early days of the pandemic, erasing $1 trillion in value since Andy Jassy took over as CEO last year.
- Jassy, who previously ran Amazon’s lucrative cloud computing business, has been closely scrutinizing businesses to trim costs quickly.
- Amazon has also closed or pared back initiatives as they failed to gain traction.
- It reduced the headcount by almost 80,000 people from April through September.
- Amazon froze hiring in several smaller teams in September.
- Devices and Alexa have long been seen internally as at risk for cuts. In 2018, Echo and Alexa lost about $5 billion.
- Price Action: AMZN shares traded lower by 1.12% at $99.71 on the last check Monday.
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