ALBAWABA — Amazon announced on Monday that it was cutting 9,000 additional jobs from its global workforce in the coming weeks, following the 18,000 layoffs that ran from November through January.
Amazon, like many other Big Tech companies, also rapidly grew its headcount during the COVID-19 pandemic, Andy Jassy, Amazon chief executive officer wrote in a memo to staff, adding that the hiring "made sense given what was happening in our businesses and the economy as a whole".
"However, 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 added.
The Amazon layoffs account for a smaller percentage of the company’s total workforce of around 1.5 million employees in December 2022, than the cuts seen at some other tech giants.
"This was a difficult decision, but one that we think is best for the company long term. Some may ask why we didn’t announce these role reductions with the ones we announced a couple months ago," Jassy wrote.
"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," the CEO added.
Jassy told employees that the extra layoffs were necessary after more feedback came from departments as the company sought ways to downsize after years of sustained hiring during the pandemic.
"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," Jassy wrote.
The cuts would mainly impact Amazon's cloud computing, human resources, advertising and Twitch videogame streaming businesses, the CEO wrote in the memo.
"Like many companies, our business has been impacted by the current macroeconomic environment, and user and revenue growth has not kept pace with our expectations," Twitch CEO Dan Clancy Clancy wrote in a separate memo to Twitch staffers, confirming that the Amazon-owned livestreaming platform was letting around 400 employees go.
"In order to run our business sustainably, we’ve made the very difficult decision to shrink the size of our workforce," Clancy added.
The layoffs are part of Amazon's cost-cutting campaign that saw it temporary pause in its plans to open a new company headquarters in the Washington DC area.
