Amazon.com’s (AMZN.O) layoffs surge to more than 18,000 jobs now as part of previously announced job cuts, chief executive Andy Jassy said in a civil service release Wednesday.
He said Amazon’s layoff decisions, which he will announce starting Jan. 18, will have a big impact on his e-commerce and human resources departments at the company.
The cuts represent a total of 6% of Amazon’s roughly 300,000 employees, a quick turnaround for the retailer, which recently doubled the base salary cap he has been competing for more aggressively. represents.
Amazon employs more than 1.5 million people, including warehouse workers, making it the second-largest private employer in the U.S. after Walmart (WMT.N). The stock rose 2% in after-hours trading.
“Annual planning is more challenging given the uncertain economic climate and we have been hiring new staff rapidly in recent years,” Jassy said in the memo.
Amazon is bracing for a possible slowdown in growth as rising inflation has forced businesses and consumers to cut back on spending, and its stock has halved over the past year.
Amazon began laying off workers in its equipment division in November, sources told Reuters at the time, aiming to cut about 10,000 jobs.
According to tracking site Layoffs.fyi, the tech industry will lay off more than 150,000 workers in 2022, a number that is still growing. Salesforce (CRM.N) on Wednesday announced plans to cut about 10% of its total workforce of about 8,000 as of Oct. 11. 31
Amazon’s reversal of fortunes is powerful. It has moved from a business deemed essential to supply households locked down during the pandemic to one that was overbuilt to meet demand. The layoffs top the 11,000 job cuts Facebook parent company Meta Platforms (META.O) announced last year.
Jassy’s memo followed a Wall Street Journal report that said the job cuts equated to more than 17,000 jobs for her. He said Amazon decided to disclose the news before affected employees were notified of the leak.
Amazon has not yet filed specific legal notices regarding mass layoffs and will pay severance payments.
“Amazon has navigated uncertain and difficult economies in the past, and will continue to do so,” said Jassy.