Amazon announced Wednesday that it plans to cut more than 18,000 jobs as it pushes to cut costs.
Mark Lenihan/AP
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Mark Lenihan/AP
Amazon announced Wednesday that it plans to cut more than 18,000 jobs as it pushes to cut costs.
Mark Lenihan/AP
Amazon announced Wednesday that it will lay off 18,000 employees. This represents the largest number of jobs cut at a tech company since the industry began aggressive layoffs last year.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a blog post that the uncertain economy and the company’s rapid hiring over the past few years are responsible for the job cuts.
The cuts will mostly hit company employees and not hourly warehouse workers. In November, Amazon was reportedly planning to lay off about 10,000 employees, but on Wednesday Jassy said the number of jobs the company would cut was higher, “just over 18,000.” I predicted.
Jassy attempted to put an optimistic note on Wednesday’s blog post announcing the massive layoffs, writing:
18,000 is a lot of work, but just over 1% of the 1.5 million Amazon employees working in warehouses and corporate offices.
Last year, Amazon was the latest big tech company to see growth slow from its pandemic-era collapse.
News of Amazon’s job cuts comes on the same day that business software giant Salesforce announced its own layoffs that will cut 10% of its workforce, or about 8,000 jobs.
Salesforce co-CEO Mark Benioff attributes the downsizing to a phrase that’s being circulated too often in Silicon Valley right now. And now, as business spending recedes, the focus is on cutting costs.
In a memo to staff, Benioff said, “We hired too many people because the pandemic accelerated our earnings, leading to this recession we are now facing.
Facebook owner Meta, along with Twitter, Snap and Vimeo, have announced significant job cuts in recent months.
For Amazon, the pandemic has been a huge boon to revenue. Online sales surged as people avoided shopping in physical stores, the need for cloud storage exploded, and more businesses and governments moved their operations online. As a result, Amazon has become a massive hire, adding hundreds of thousands of jobs over the past few years.
Amazon layoffs first reported on Tuesday wall street journall.
In a blog post, CEO Jassy acknowledged that the company has hired too much, but intends to help soften the blow of laid-off employees.
“We are working to help those affected, offering packages that include separation benefits, temporary health insurance benefits, and outside employment support,” Jassy said.
