A fresh wave of job cuts has hit the cloud computing and human resources divisions across Amazon.
According to CNBC, the fresh round of layoffs which began on Wednesday had been announced earlier and is expected to affect 9,000 employees.
Amazon CEO Andy Jessy had been taking aggressive cost cutting measures since last November, including layoffs, a corporate hiring freeze, cutting off some experimental projects and slowing down of warehouse expansion.
In recent weeks Amazon had laid off some employees in its advertising unit, as well as the video game and Twitch livestreaming units.
In a memo confirming the layoffs, Amazon Web Services CEO, Adam Selipsky said notification messages have been sent to impacted employees in the US, Canada, and Costa Rica.
He mentioned that the company is doing its best to treat the affected employees with respect and to provide helpful resources to aid the transition.
“We are working hard to treat everyone impacted with respect, and to provide a number of resources and touchpoints to aid in this transition. This also includes packages that include a separation payment, transitional health insurance benefits, and external job placement support,” Selipsky said.
Human resources head, Beth Galleti also sent a memo to the PXT team informing them of the elimination of additional roles within the unit assuring the affected employees of the team’s support. Galleti wrote, “In the U.S., we are providing packages that include a 60-day non-working transitional period with full pay and benefits, plus an additional several weeks of severance depending on tenure, a separation payment, transitional benefits, and external job placement support.”
First round of job cuts at Amazon started last November and extended into January, affecting over 18,000 employees primarily in the retail, devices, recruiting and human resources units.
With an addition of 9,000 layoffs, Amazon is experiencing its largest layoffs in 29 years.
“It is a tough day across our organization,” Selipsky wrote in his memo.
Amazon had gone on a hiring spree during the COVID pandemic, increasing its global workforce from 798,000 in Q4 of 2019 to over 1.6million by the end of 2022.
