The job cuts, representing the biggest layoff in Amazon’s history to date, will be reportedly done in the company's devices organisation, including the voice assistant Alexa gadgets, home security cameras, in addition to its human resources and retail divisions
Amazon to reportedly cut jobs of nearly 10,000 employees. (Credit: Xabier Cid/Wikimedia Commons)
Amazon is reportedly planning to make nearly 10,000 employees in corporate and technology roles redundant, starting as early as this week, as part of its implementation of cost-cutting strategies.
The layoffs will be the largest for the American e-commerce major in its history. The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal are believed to be among the first to report on the job cuts citing undisclosed sources, who are having information about the matter.
The layoffs will impact about 3% of its corporate staff and less than 1% of its global workforce, which stands at more than 1.5 million. Amazon’s workforce is mainly made up of hourly workers.
They will be concentrated on the company’s devices organisation. This includes the Alexa voice assistant gadgets, home security cameras, in addition to the human resources and retail divisions.
The company has not yet revealed the timeframe for notifying its employees about the layoffs, reported Reuters.
The e-commerce major has warned of a slowdown in sales growth for the usually busy holiday season.
Last month, Amazon announced financial results for its third quarter 2022, which saw the net income decrease to $2.9bn, compared to $3.2bn in Q3 2021. The operating income in Q3 2022 came down to $2.5bn, compared with $4.9bn in the same period of last year.
Amazon’s layoff plan follows a series of job cuts in the technology sector announced by microblogging platform Twitter, Facebook’s owner Meta, and others.
Most recently, Meta decided to lay off nearly 13% of its workforce, leaving more than 11,000 redundant. Twitter, which became a privately owned company following a takeover by Elon Musk, has sacked almost half of its employees.