Uncertain economy? Amazon to sack 18,000 workers

An American multinational technology company, Amazon, has said it is planning to sack over 18,000 employees from its total workforce.

The figure, which is the largest number of layoffs in the company’s history, represents 1.2 per cent of its 1.5 million employees across the globe.

The chief executive officer of Amazon, Andy Jassy, announced the development in a public staff note on Thursday.

He attributed the job cuts to the “uncertain economy” and the company’s rapid hiring over the last several years.

“As I shared back in November, as part of our annual planning process for 2023, leaders across the company have been working with their teams and looking at their workforce levels, investments they want to make in the future, and prioritising what matters most to customers and the long-term health of our businesses.

“This year’s review has been more difficult given the uncertain economy and that we’ve hired rapidly over the last several years. In November, we communicated the hard decision to eliminate a number of positions across our devices and books businesses, and also announced a voluntary reduction offer for some employees in our people, experience, and technology organisation.

“I also shared that we weren’t done with our annual planning process and that I expected there would be more role reductions in early 2023.

“Today, I wanted to share the outcome of these further reviews, which is the difficult decision to eliminate additional roles. Between the reductions we made in November and the ones we’re sharing today, we plan to eliminate just over 18,000 roles,” the Amazon CEO said.

Jassy said while the layoffs will be carried out across departments, it would majorly impact Amazon Stores and PXT organisations.

He added that all the affected employees will receive packages that also include external job placement support.

Jassy said the company will start informing affected staff from January 18.