Amazon.com CEO Andy Jassy said in a public staff note the company’s layoffs will exceed more than 18,000 roles as part of a workforce reduction it previously disclosed.
The layoff decisions, which Amazon will communicate starting January 18, will impact the company’s e-commerce and human-resources organizations.
The job-cut amounts to 6 percent of Amazon’s roughly 300,000-person corporate workforce. The job reduction represents a turn for a retailer that recently doubled its base pay ceiling to compete more aggressively for talented employees.
Andy Jassy said in the note that annual planning “has been more difficult given the uncertain economy and that we’ve hired rapidly over the last several years.”
Amazon.com has more than 1.5 million workers including warehouse staff, making it America’s second-largest private employer after Walmart.
Amazon began letting staff go in November from its devices division. Reuters earlier reported that Amazon was targeting 10,000 job cuts.
Amazon’s Q3 2022 sales rose 15 percent to $127.1 billion, while net income decreased to $2.9 billion from $3.2 billion in the third quarter of 2021. Amazon will reveal Q4 2022 financial results shortly.
