Amazon cuts another 9,000 jobs as tech layoffs mount
CEO Andy Jassy rose to power within Amazon by turning its cloud-computing business into a massive profit center. Now, he’s planning to slash 9,000 jobs at Amazon Web Services and other units, pointing to an “uncertain economy,” as the company’s growth cools.
Monday’s announcement builds on the 18,000 layoffs previously announced by the e-commerce giant — bringing the total to 27,000 — and stands in a stark contrast to the explosive growth that the technology industry and Amazon in particular have seen in the past decade.
Given the “uncertain economy in which we reside, and the uncertainty that exists in the near future, we have chosen to be more streamlined in our costs and headcount,” Jassy said in a note sent to employees and published online.
The Seattle company boomed during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic as consumers leaned into online ordering. But growth has waned for Amazon and fellow tech giants Facebook, Google and Microsoft, which have all announced massive layoffs in the past several months. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) As of early February, more than 67,000 jobs had been eliminated across the industry since the beginning of the year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
It’s a significant reversal for an industry that some had perceived as “recession-proof.” But others say the companies grew too big, too fast and needed to rein in spending. The layoffs also have hit start-ups and smaller firms, and funding has been less accessible as the sector struggles.
The tech world was dealt another blow this month when Silicon Valley Bank collapsed and was taken over by regulators after it said it would need to sell shares to raise money and panicked customers caused a bank run.
The new layoffs will also hit Amazon’s advertising unit, as well as in the videogame streaming business Twitch and other corporate divisions.
Last week, Twitch cofounder Emmett Shear said he would step down as CEO, passing the reins to the company president’s Dan Clancy. In a blog post Monday, Clancy announced that Twitch would lay off “just over” 400 people.
Most of Amazon’s 1.5 million employees work in its warehouses, but it had more than 330,000 corporate and tech employees
worldwide before it started cutting tens of thousands of white-collar workers.
Amazon has pulled back in other areas as well — this month, it announced it was pausing construction on its much-anticipated second headquarters in Arlington, Va.; it has also closed, canceled or delayed dozens of other development projects across the country.
The company recently introduced a return-tooffice edict, which frustrated thousands of employees who joined an internal
Slack group to protest the decision.
Jassy said the latest cuts were determined after divisions decided on their priorities and outlined investments for the next year in an annual planning process.
“Some may ask why we didn’t announce these role reductions with the ones we announced a couple months ago,” he wrote in an announcement Monday. “The short answer is that not all of the teams were done with their analyses in the late fall; and rather than rush through these assessments without the appropriate diligence, we chose to share these decisions as we’ve made them so people had the information as soon as possible.”