Amazon on Monday announced plans to cut another 9,000 positions, its second round of mass layoffs in recent months.
The company will be targeting roles in its cloud computing unit, human resources division, advertising and Twitch, according to a letter to employees from CEO Andy Jassy.
“This was a difficult decision, but one that we think is best for the company long term,” Jassy shared in his note. “(We want to be) leaner while doing so in a way that enables us to still invest robustly in the key long-term customer experiences.”
Why is Amazon conducting layoffs?
The announcement comes just months after Amazon eliminated about 18,000 positions.
Jassy’s letter said Amazon had added “a significant amount of headcount” in recent years but has decided to streamline costs and staff to shield the company from economic uncertainties.
After a burst of hiring sprees in the early days of the pandemic, rising interest rates have pushed a number of tech giants to trim staff. Facebook parent company Meta earlier this month announced plans to lay off another 10,000 workers after cutting 11,000 employees in 2022, and Google in January said it would be eliminating roughly 12,000 jobs.
What is Amazon PXT?
The impacted Amazon teams should decide which roles are to be eliminated by mid to late April, according to Jassy’s letter.
The affected teams include:
- PXT (People, Experience and Technology), Amazon’s human resources division
- AWS, or Amazon Web Services, Amazon’s cloud computing unit
- Advertising
- Twitch, a video game live streaming service
Jassy noted that there will be limited hiring in some of Amazon’s businesses “in strategic areas.”
How many people are being laid off in tech?
More than 500 tech companies have laid off more than 139,000 employees so far this year, according to Layoffs.fyi, a website that has been tracking tech layoffs since March 2020.
Amazon shares were trading at $96.92 at 11:57 a.m. Eastern time, down 2.06% from the day prior.
Dig deeper:
Opinion:Don’t quote Martin Luther King Jr. when you announce layoffs via email
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