What you need to know
- Amazon has announced another round of employee layoffs.
- The company plans to shed roughly 9,000 employees over the next few weeks.
- The departments affected in this latest round include AWS, PXT, Advertising, and Twitch.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced on Monday that the company plans to lay off roughly 9,000 employees over the next few weeks. This is the second such announcement from Amazon over the past few months.
In an internal message shared publicly on Monday morning, Jassy stated that this latest round of layoffs would mainly focus on certain Amazon divisions. This includes Amazon Web Services, People Experience and Technology (PTX), Advertising, and Twitch.
"As part of our annual planning process, leaders across the company work with their teams to decide what investments they want to make for the future, prioritizing what matters most to customers and the long-term health of our businesses," Jassy stated in the notice. He points out how the company increased its headcount over the past several years as the pandemic led to a shift in spending behaviors and how companies operate.
"However, given the uncertain economy in which we reside, and the uncertainty that exists in the near future, we have chosen to be more streamlined in our costs and headcount."
In January, Amazon announced that it would lay off roughly 18,000 workers, months after initially signaling it would reduce its headcount from major divisions in November. This latest round brings its total headcount reduction to approximately 27,000 positions.
Jassy explains that these additional reductions were not announced in January as teams were still evaluating their needs. He warns that teams are still deciding which roles will be impacted and that Amazon plans to finalize these decisions by "mid to late April."
The layoffs follow Amazon's recent decision to close several of its cashierless Amazon Go stores across the country as it continues reevaluating its strategy with brick-and-mortar stores.
The announcement also comes just a week after Meta revealed that it was laying off an additional 10,000 employees as part of its "Year of Efficiency." And like Meta, Amazon says the goal of the reductions is to help the company "be leaner while doing so in a way that enables us to still invest robustly in the key long-term customer experiences that we believe can meaningfully improve customers' lives and Amazon as a whole."
Amazon says it will offer affected employees with severance payments, transitional health insurance, and external job placement support.
