Major layoffs in the tech sector continue to grow with the latest being another round from Amazon.
In a blog post, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced that the company plans to lay off 9,000 more employees “in the next few weeks.” According to the statement, the layoffs will predominantly affect employees in Amazon Web Services (AWS), the Prime Experience Team (PXT), the company’s advertising team, and Twitch.
Jassy attributes the latest round of layoffs to the same thing that other tech CEOs have pointed to — the economy. The CEO said that “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.” While the company went through a hiring spree over the last few years, it now says that its focus is “to be leaner while doing so in a way that enables us to still invest robustly in the key long-term customer experiences that we believe can meaningfully improve customers’ lives and Amazon as a whole.”
The company says that it will have all of its layoff decisions finalized “mid to late April.” Impacted employees will receive “separation payment, transitional health insurance benefits, and external job placement support.”
This latest round of layoffs comes after the company let go of approximately 18,000 employees last year — according to Amazon’s estimate. The company had confirmed that it would go through another round of layoffs at the end of 2022, also pointing to the uncertainty in the economy as the reason for the job impacts.
As to why this latest round of layoffs did not occur with the rest that the company announced late last year, Jassy admitted that the company did not finish the necessary analysis in order to determine the exact employees that would be impacted. That’s true with today’s announcement as well. So, if you’re an Amazon employee, you’re going to still be waiting to find out if you have a job next month.
