The New York Times said that is preparing to fire some 10,000 workers in corporate and technical positions starting this week. The Wall Street Journal cited a person who claimed the business intended to fire thousands of workers. According to the article, the cuts would be the biggest in the company’s history and would mostly affect Amazon’s devices department, retail division, and human resources. Less than 1% of Amazon’s global workforce and 3% of its corporate personnel would be affected by the alleged layoffs.
The report comes after layoffs at other tech companies. More than 11,000 employees, or more than 13% of Meta’s workforce, will be let go, the company revealed last week following Twitter’s layoffs of half its workforce after the $44 billion Elon Musk takeover.
Amazon relies heavily on the holiday shopping season, and to satisfy demand, the corporation typically increases staffing levels during this time. However, since assuming the position of CEO in July 2021, Andy Jassy has been actively reducing costs to protect the company’s cash flow as it deals with sluggish sales and a dour global economy.
With a 41% annual decline, Amazon stock is on track to have its worst year since 2008. On Monday, Amazon’s stock fell by nearly 2%.
The corporation has already made preparations to halt corporate hiring in its retail division. Aside from shuttering its roving delivery robot and underperforming brick-and-mortar chains, Amazon has recently shut down its telehealth service, discontinued a quirky kid-friendly video calling projector, closed all but one of its U.S. call centres, and is closing, cancelling, or discontinuing several other services.
At a time like this, Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos has stated that he intends to donate the majority of his $124 billion (£107 billion) fortune throughout his lifetime. The businessman told CNN that he would contribute his riches to the battle against inequality and climate change. He has received criticism in the past for not making a promise to donate his riches to good causes.
After giving $100 million to philanthropist Dolly Parton for use in charity endeavours, Mr Bezos announced his plans. The hard part is figuring out how to do it in a levered way, he said, declining to elaborate on how he would spend or donate the money.
