Staff at risk in Amazon’s global jobs shake-up

Amazon has not ruled out making cuts at its UK operations as part of a global jobs shake-up at the online retail giant.

The company has confirmed it will axe a “small” number of positions across the business, but stopped short of giving a number.

The Seattle Times cited sources who said the move would affect several hundred employees at Amazon’s Seattle headquarters and hundreds more across its global operations, with layoffs focused on its consumer retail business.

Amazon has not ruled out that the UK business – which includes a large distribution operation at Dunfermline – will be shielded from the cuts.

A spokesman said: “As part of our annual planning process we are making head-count adjustments across the company, small reductions in a couple of places and aggressive hiring in many others.

“For affected employees we work to find roles in the areas where we are hiring.”

The job cuts are an unusual move for the retail giant, which tends to make headlines for hiring sprees rather than a drop in office headcounts.

The Seattle Times cited several employees who said the company’s rapid growth in recent years meant some units had overshot their budgets, while others were left with too little work for too many staff.

It added that a hiring freeze had been introduced for a number of groups and that job cuts were already under way.