In November of last year 2022, between announcements of layoffs by most of the big technology companies, Amazon announced that it was going to lay off some 10,000 workers. However, the company, which began layoffs in November, did not fully specify how many of its employees would have to leave their post. It has finally done so, and the figure is much higher than what was announced then: it will be around 18,000 Amazon workers to be laid off. This has been confirmed by its CEO, Andy Jassy, in a statement.
Jassy has also announced that most layoffs will occur in Amazon Stores Y in the People, Experience and Technology departments. Jassy has also pointed out that the company, which last summer had approximately 1.5 million workers worldwide, would wait to release the exact number of redundancies until it had spoken to the people directly affected by the redundancies, but who had decided to make public layoffs earlier because an employee leaked the information.
According to Amazon’s initial plans, those affected in this round of layoffs were going to begin to receive the communication that they had to leave their post as of January 18. This after the company has been admitting over the last few months that it was going to consolidate «some equipment and programs» in its hardware and services division. Since then, the company has been laying off people, but without confirming figures.
The Amazon CEO said then that there would be “further job reductions as area and department heads continue to make adjustments» in 2023, but until now no further information has been provided on the affected posts, nor on their number.
In October, Amazon announced that it had returned to growth in sales above 10%, and promised investors that it was making progress in reducing costs. On January 3, the company informed the SEC that it had obtained loans worth 8,000 million of dollars for «general corporate purposes«. Then, an internal source told Techcrunch that the company had been using “different financing options to support capital expenditures, amortize debt, and capital needs derived from purchases and the workforce“, while moving forward”due to an uncertain macroeconomic environment«.
Regarding the people they will lay off, the company has assured that “works to support those affected, and they are offering packages that include a severance pay, transitional health insurance advantages, and support to find work in other companies«.
