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Amazon’s current layoffs will add more than 18,000 roles as part of previously disclosed workforce reductions, chief executive Andy Jassy said in a public staff memo on Wednesday.
The layoff decision, which Amazon will communicate starting January 18, will generally affect the company’s e-commerce organization and human resources, he said. Jassy’s note does not specify which country it will be in.
CBC News reached out to the company to ask if employees in Canada will be affected by the layoffs. The company posted Jassy’s note in response.
The cuts amount to six percent of Amazon’s roughly 300,000-strong workforce, and are a quick turnaround for the retailer, which recently doubled base pay 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.
The stock rose 1.8 percent to US$86.71 in pre-market trading on Friday.
‘We don’t know how this will affect us’: unions
A spokesman for the GMB union in London said it was aware of the job cuts, but its members would not be affected by the plans.
Members of the union who work at Amazon’s warehouse in Coventry, central England, plan to carry out a walkout on January 25 over a pay row with the e-commerce giant.
Laurent Degoussee of the SUD trade union in France said the plan would not affect the company’s Amazon Logistique France unit.
Douglas Harper, spokesman for Spain’s largest trade union, the CCOO, criticized what he said was a 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 before layoffs in the rest of the operation, not only the company’s workforce, but we do not have official data.”
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After years of steady growth, global tech stocks and cryptocurrency prices have plummeted, prompting layoffs and hiring at high-profile companies.
Jassy said in a memo that annual planning “has been more difficult because of the uncertain economy and we’ve been hiring very quickly over the past few years.”
Amazon has been bracing for slower growth as rising inflation encourages businesses and consumers to cut back on spending. This stock price has halved in the past year.
The company began laying off staff in November from its device division, with sources telling Reuters it was targeting around 10,000 layoffs.
The wave of tech layoffs continues
The global tech industry is set to lay off more than 150,000 workers by 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 staff worldwide, or about 8,000 people, starting Oct. 31.
Amazon’s reversal of fortunes has been dramatic. The change from a business that is considered essential during the pandemic to deliver goods to locked homes, becomes a company that requires demand.
The current layoffs are on top of the 11,000 cuts announced last year by Facebook parent company Meta.
Sunday Magazine24:44What layoffs at Twitter and Meta could mean for the future of Big Tech
Nearly 15,000 tech workers are being laid off this month at two of the world’s biggest social media companies, as Twitter and Facebook’s parent company Meta makes sweeping changes it says it needs to stay competitive. But science fiction author, activist and writer Cory Doctorow believes the layoffs are just the latest example of workers suffering from bad decisions by tech billionaires. Doctorow joins Piya Chattopadhyay to talk about his new book, Chokepoint Capitalism, which explores the fight for better labor standards in Big Tech and makes the case for joint action to keep the Elon Musks and Mark Zuckerbergs of the world in check.
Jassy’s remarks followed a report in the Wall Street Journal that the reductions would be more than 17,000 jobs. He said Amazon chose to announce the news before informing staff affected by the leak.
Amazon still has to file certain legal notices about the mass layoffs, and plans to pay severance payments.
Jassy said, “Amazon has experienced an uncertain and difficult economy in the past, and we will continue to do so.”
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