The layoffs will reportedly affect employees in Amazon's retail division and human resources. Several employees working on Amazon's virtual assistant Alexa may also lose their jobs.
Amazon plans to lay off about 10,000 people over the next few days, according to a report by the New York Times on Monday citing people with knowledge of the matter. If the move is made, it will follow a significant reduction in staff at Twitter and Facebook parent company Meta. Approximately 3% of the e-commerce giant's corporate staff would be affected by the layoffs, compared to fewer than 1% of its more than 1.5 million hourly-only employees worldwide.
According to the report, which also stated that the final number of layoffs remained a moving target, "The cuts will centre on Amazon's gadgets organisation, including the voice-assistant Alexa, as well as at its retail business and in human resources."
Amazon employed roughly 1,608,000 full-time and part-time employees as of December 31 of the previous year. The report was released on the same day that Jeff Bezos, the company's creator, told CNN that he intended to donate the majority of his US$124 billion net worth to charity throughout his lifetime.
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According to the NYT investigation, Amazon has been experiencing problems as the internet giant decreased its personnel by about 80,000 individuals between April and September, mostly via attrition among its hourly workforce.
The report claims that Amazon stopped hiring in a number of smaller teams in September. In its primary retail operation, it ceased filling more than 10,000 unfilled positions in October. It placed a temporary halt to corporate recruiting two weeks ago throughout the whole organisation, including its cloud computing section. The decision, which was made just before Christmas at a time when the corporation wanted stability, demonstrates how swiftly the faltering global economy has put pressure on it to close down operations that have been overstaffed or performing below par for years.
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Amazon has joined a group of US businesses that have reduced their workforce drastically in order to prepare for a possible slump in the economy. Last Monday, Meta Platforms, a subsidiary of Facebook, announced it will reduce expenses by 13% by eliminating more than 11,000 positions. Elon Musk, a billionaire who recently acquired Twitter, cut the social media company's employment in half.
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