Amazon to lay off 18,000 employees, CEO Andy Jassy says

Tech giant Amazon today announced that it would lay off over 18,000 employees, which accounts for 1.2% of its 1.5 million global workforce.

The company first said in November that it would start reducing its headcount, which reportedly affected 10,000 workers according to the Wall Street Journal. That number has now been raised to 18.000.

In a memo to staff, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said that the latest move will mainly affect the ones working in its Amazon Stores and PXT organizations. He said that those impacted by the job cuts will be contacted beginning January 18, and offered packages ‘’that include a separation payment, transitional health insurance benefits, and external job placement support.’’

‘’We typically wait to communicate about these outcomes until we can speak with the people who are directly impacted,’’ Jassy added. ‘’However, because one of our teammates leaked this information externally, we decided it was better to share this news earlier so you can hear the details directly from me.’’

Amazon workers are not the only ones that started 2023 with layoff news. Yesterday, Salesforce announced that it would reduce its workforce by 10%, which would affect more than 7,000 staff. And earlier this week, sources told the SCMP that TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance also laid off hundreds of employees.

But big tech lay-offs are nothing new. Last year, companies including Meta, Twitter, Google, Snap, Shopify, Robinhood, Niantic and many others either reduced their workforce or announced hiring freezes. According to Layoffs.fyi, over 150,000 employees were laid off by tech companies in 2022.