Amazon Initiates Layoff Affecting 18K Employees: Report

As announced in November, Amazon.Com, Inc AMZN has reportedly initiated a round of record layoffs affecting over 18,000 employees as it battled slowing online sales growth and a possible recession.
In early January, CEO Andy Jassy said he expects the downsizing to help the company pursue its long-term opportunities with a more robust cost structure.
Amazon’s Devices and Services group, known for the Alexa digital assistant and Echo smart speakers, were the hardest hit as the downsizing began in 2022.
The latest round will mostly affect the retail division and human resources, Bloomberg reports.
While the cuts represent 1% of the workforce, including hundreds of thousands of hourly warehouse and delivery personnel, they amount to 6% of Amazon’s 350,000 global corporate strength.
The leading online retailer dedicated 2022 to adjusting to the pandemic recovery as shoppers went cautious about their spending.
Amazon paused warehouse openings and suspended hiring in its retail group extending it to the company’s corporate staff and began slashing jobs.
Amazon joined tech peers, including Cisco Systems Inc CSCO, Intel Corp INTC, Meta Platforms Inc META, Qualcomm Inc QCOM, and Salesforce Inc CRM which trimmed down their workforce to control costs.
Microsoft Corp (MSFT) looked to downsize by 5% of its employee strength or 11,000 jobs.
The job cuts will affect several engineering divisions.
Microsoft will likely lay off as much as one-third of its recruiting staff.
Microsoft has put a freeze on hiring and may not resume its regular hiring rate for one or two years.
Price Action: AMZN shares traded higher by 0.54% at $96.57 in the premarket on the last check Wednesday.
Photo Via Wikimedia Commons

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