According to estimates, the majority of the workers affected by the most recent round of layoffs at e-commerce behemoth Amazon were in its human resources (HR) and cloud computing departments.
Employees in the US, Canada, and Costa Rica received notes warning them of the job losses from Amazon Web Services (AWS) CEO Adam Selipsky and HR director Beth Galetti, according to CNBC.
Selipsky said in the message that “in other regions, we are following local processes, which may include time for consultation with employee representative bodies and possibly result in longer timelines to communicate with impacted employees.”
He said that it is essential that “we focus on identifying and putting our resources behind our top priorities” in light of the economy's general macroeconomic and commercial environment as well as its fast expansion.
According to Selipsky, “in many cases this means team members are shifting the projects, initiatives, or teams on which they work; however, in other cases it has resulted in these role eliminations,” adding that the foundation and outlook for the AWS company remain sound.
The layoffs are a part of the 9,000 staff job cutbacks that were previously announced. Amazon reduced employment in the first wave of job cuts by around 18,000 positions.
It is the biggest reduction in staff in Amazon's 29-year history when combined with the cutbacks this month.
By prioritising what matters most to consumers and the long-term sustainability of our companies, Galetti said in a separate message that executives throughout the firm have worked closely with their teams to select what investments they are going to make for the future.
“Given the close partnership between the business and People Experience and Technology Solutions (PXT), these shifts also affect our OP2 plans, and we have made the difficult decision to eliminate additional roles within the PXT organisation,” she said.
These choices “are not made lightly, and I am aware of the impact they will have on both those leaving the company and our remaining coworkers,” Galetti said.
The corporation is offering packages in the US that consist of a 60-day, non-working transitional period with full salary and benefits, as well as an extra few weeks of severance based on tenure, a separation payout, transitional benefits, and outside job placement assistance.
Along with shuttering its health-focused Halo business, Amazon also stopped selling the Halo Band, Halo View, and Halo Rise devices, and they are no longer listed on its online store. Employees from the Halo team have also been let go by the corporation.
The world's largest online retailer was slated to release first-quarter financial results on Thursday (US time) after market hours.
