Amazon to lay off another 9,000 employees

Amazon объявила a second round of layoffs that will affect 9,000 employees. A portion of workers in the AWS, Twitch, advertising and HR departments will be let go.

Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy explained the latest round of cuts as the result of the “uncertain economic environment”. He said the company “decided to be more prudent with regard to spending and headcount”.

Jassy said the tech giant did not announce all the layoffs at once because teams conducted internal analyses at different times. He said these assessments could influence the priorities for layoffs and management did not want to “rush” them.

“We decided to share these decisions as they were made, so people would receive information as soon as possible,” the top executive said.

Jassy noted that the affected teams had not yet determined which employees would be laid off. The company plans to decide the matter by mid-to-late April.

Laid-off workers will receive severance pay, temporary health insurance, and help with finding new jobs, Amazon said.

“I remain very optimistic about the future and the opportunities across our largest operations, stores and AWS, as well as in the new customer experience and businesses we invest in,” Jassy said.

Earlier, Twitch CEO Emmett Shear покинул the role and moved to a consultancy position. At the time, it was unclear whether the changes were connected to possible layoffs.

However, the new head of the platform, Dan Clancy объявил, that Twitch will lay off “a little over” 400 people.

“As with many companies, the current macroeconomic environment affected our business, and user and revenue growth did not meet our expectations,” Clancy wrote.

He said it was a necessary measure aimed at strengthening the resilience of the business.

The fourth quarter of 2022 was Amazon’s worst. The company reported its first net loss since 2014, amounting to $2.7 billion.

In recent months, Amazon has taken a number of cost-cutting measures, including postponing the construction of the second headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, and the closure of the Go cashless stores.

Amazon is not the only company facing financial strains and layoffs in an unsettled economy. Earlier, mass reductions were announced by Meta, Microsoft and Alphabet.

In January, Jassy announced the layoff of 18,000 employees.