Amazon, a major online corporation, has officially announced its intention to reduce its global workforce by 16,000 employees. Although the company did not specify the regions affected, reports suggest that the impact on the UK may be limited. Job cuts are anticipated in various departments, including Amazon Web Services, retail, Prime Video, and human resources.
This recent downsizing initiative follows a previous announcement in October, where Amazon, led by Jeff Bezos with a net worth of £180 billion, revealed 14,000 job redundancies.
Beth Galetti, the Senior Vice President of People Experience and Technology at Amazon, conveyed a message to the staff, acknowledging the challenging news and providing insights into the reasons behind the decision. Approximately 16,000 roles across Amazon will be affected by the current workforce reduction, with efforts in place to support impacted employees.
In a special mention to US employees, Amazon informed them that they will have a 90-day window to seek internal job opportunities before being offered severance packages if no suitable roles are found. Galetti emphasized the company’s commitment to continuous hiring and investment in critical areas essential for its future growth.
Addressing concerns about the possibility of recurring layoffs, Galetti clarified that it is not Amazon’s strategy to announce widespread reductions periodically. She highlighted the importance of ongoing evaluation of team performance, adaptability, and customer-centric innovation in a rapidly evolving global landscape.
Notably, Amazon inadvertently alerted its Web Services cloud-computing division employees about the impending layoffs ahead of schedule through an email and a premature team meeting invitation. The email, attributed to Colleen Aubrey, AWS’s Senior Vice President of Applied AI Solutions, inaccurately stated that affected employees in the US, Canada, and Costa Rica had already been notified of their job terminations.
Reports indicate that AWS employees who received the premature email mentioned above observed the cancellation of the scheduled meeting shortly after.