Amazon’s layoffs will now increase to more than 18,000 positions as part of previously disclosed workforce reductions, CEO Andy Jassy said in a public memo to staff on Wednesday.
The layoff decisions Amazon will announce starting Jan. 18 will largely affect the company’s e-commerce and human resources organization, he said. Jassy’s memo did not specify in which countries the cuts would be made.
CBC News has reached out to the company to ask if employees in Canada will be affected by the layoffs. The company attached Jassy’s note in response.
The layoffs amount to six percent of Amazon’s corporate workforce of about 300,000 people and represent a swift turnaround for a retailer that recently doubled its base pay cap to compete more aggressively for talent.
Amazon has more than 1.5 million workers worldwide, including warehouse staff, and is the second largest private employer in the US after Walmart.
Its shares rose 1.8 percent to $86.71 in premarket trading Thursday.
“We don’t know how this will affect us”: unions
A spokesman for London-based union GMB said it was aware of the job cuts but its members would not be affected by the plans.
Union members who work at Amazon’s warehouse in Coventry, central England, plan to stage a walkout on January 25 over a pay dispute with the e-commerce giant.
Employees work at Amazon’s fulfillment center in Brampton, Ontario, on November 26, 2018. The company’s upcoming round of layoffs will largely affect workers in its e-commerce and human resources operations. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press)
Laurent Degusset of the SUD union in France said the plans would not affect the company’s Amazon Logistique France unit.
Douglas Harper, spokesman for Spain’s largest union, the CCOO, criticized what he said was a complete lack of information from the company.
“We don’t know how this will affect us in Spain,” Harper told Reuters. “We can assume that this is the first step preceding layoffs in the rest of the operations, not just in the corporate workforce, but we have no official data.”
WATCH | Big tech hit by downturns, layoffs:
Uncertainty hits big tech with downturns and layoffs
After years of steady growth, global tech stocks and cryptocurrency prices are in decline, leading to layoffs and hiring freezes at big-name companies.
Jassi said in the memo that annual planning “is more difficult given the uncertain economy and that we have been hiring rapidly over the past few years.”
Amazon braced itself for possibly slower growth as rising inflation encouraged businesses and consumers to cut spending. Its share price has halved in the past year.
The company began laying off employees in November from its devices division, with a source telling Reuters at the time that it was targeting about 10,000 layoffs.
The wave of tech layoffs will continue
The global tech industry has laid off more than 150,000 workers in 2022, according to tracking site Layoffs.fyi, a number that continues to grow.
Salesforce said Wednesday it plans to cut about 10 percent of its global workforce, or about 8,000 people, effective Oct. 31.
Amazon’s reversal of fortunes was abrupt. It changed from a business considered essential during the pandemic to deliver goods to foreclosed homes to a company that was reshaping demand.
Its layoffs now top the 11,000 layoffs announced last year by Facebook’s parent company Meta.
The Sunday Magazine 24:44 What Twitter and Meta cuts could mean for the future of Big Tech
Nearly 15,000 tech workers were laid off this month at two of the world’s biggest social media companies as Twitter and Facebook parent Meta make major changes they say are needed to remain competitive. But science fiction author, activist and writer Cory Doctorow believes the layoffs are just the latest example of workers bearing the brunt of bad decision-making by tech billionaires. Doctorow joins Piya Chattopadhyay to talk about her new book, Chokepoint Capitalism, which explores the fight for better labor standards in Big Tech and makes the case for collective action to keep the Elon Musks and Mark Zuckerbergs of the world in check .
Jassy’s memo followed a report in the Wall Street Journal that the cuts would be more than 17,000 jobs. He said Amazon chose to break the news before informing affected staff because of a leak.
Amazon still has to file certain legal notices about the mass layoffs and plans to pay compensation.
Jassi said, “Amazon has weathered uncertain and difficult economies in the past, and we will continue to do so.”
Add Comment