According to unnamed sources cited by the Wall Street Journal, Amazon will layoff 17, 000 employees.
That's a lot more than had been previously thought; according to The New York Times' November article, the company planned to lay off about 10,000 workers. The company estimated that it employed over 1.5 million people overall as of September 2022.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy stated in November that job layoffs at the e-commerce behemoth had started and would continue through early 2023, though Amazon has not revealed the precise number it expects to lay off.
"Our annual planning process extends into the new year, which means there will be more role reductions as leaders continue to make adjustments," Jassy wrote in a letter to staff.
The company hasn't "concluded yet exactly how many other roles will be impacted," according to Jassy, but "each leader will communicate to their respective teams when we have the details nailed down."
The "majority" of the roles being eliminated will be reportedly in Amazon Stores and People, Experience, and Technology organizations.
Amazon confirmed in November that it was consolidating "some teams and programs" in its hardware and services division. However, the company has never publicly acknowledged the original number.
Jassy did inform staff that "more role reductions" would occur in 2023 "as leaders continue to make adjustments," but up to this point, the business has been incredibly evasive about the precise number of employees impacted.
According to the company, it is striving to support employees who are impacted and is offering packages that include a separation payment, temporary health insurance benefits, and assistance with finding outside employment.
As the pandemic changed consumer purchasing patterns toward e-commerce during the past several years, Amazon and other digital companies greatly increased hiring. Now that individuals are reverting to their pre-pandemic habits and macroeconomic conditions are deteriorating, many of these ostensibly untouchable digital corporations are suffering whiplash and letting go of thousands of employees.
This makes Amazon's cut one of the largest from a tech giant to date. In recent months, Meta announced the layoffs of approximately 11,000 employees, while others such as Intel have revealed plans to make large layoffs throughout the year.
Earlier on Wednesday, Salesforce announced that it will lay off 10% of its personnel, or approximately 8,000 employees, while Vimeo announced that it would lay off 11% of its workforce.
