AMZN of Amazon.com Inc.,
The layoffs affected more than 17,000 employees, according to people familiar with the matter, which is more than the company originally planned, and comes amid cuts previously announced at big tech companies. will be the largest in
The Seattle-based company announced in November that it was beginning layoffs of its corporate workforce, with the cuts focused on its device business, recruiting and retail operations. At the time, the company expected the cuts to total about 10,000 jobs, but a person familiar with the matter said that number could change, The Wall Street Journal reported last year. Thousands of reductions began.
The total number of layoffs will exceed 17,000 and will take place in the coming weeks, according to some officials. As of September, Amazon employs her 1.5 million people, most of whom work in warehouses. The layoffs are concentrated in the company’s corporate division, some of the people said.
Also read: Salesforce will lay off 10% of its staff as part of its restructuring.
Amazon is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the COVID-19 pandemic as customers rush to shop online. The influx of entries into Amazon’s various businesses, from e-commerce to groceries to cloud computing, has helped the company grow over the years. To keep up with demand, Amazon doubled its logistics network and added hundreds of thousands of employees.
As consumers return to shopping in brick-and-mortar stores and demand begins to falter, Amazon has launched a broad cost-cutting review to cut unprofitable units, the Journal reported. In the spring and summer, the company made targeted cuts to cut costs, closing brick-and-mortar stores and business units such as Amazon Care. Amazon then announced a company-wide hiring freeze before deciding to lay off employees.
A larger version of this report is available on WSJ.com.
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