Amazon’s downsizing will be greater than initially estimated. The technology and e-commerce giant founded by Jeff Bezos began to lay off thousands of employees last November, but the adjustment will be greater than expected and will reach 17,000 jobs, as published this Wednesday The Wall Street Journal. With this, the figure exceeds the 11,000 layoffs announced by Meta last year and becomes the largest cut carried out by one of the big technology companies.
With 1.5 million employees, Amazon is the second largest company in the US, behind only Walmart. The 17,000 layoffs represent just over 1% of total employment at the Seattle-based company, Washington, but far exceed the 10,000 jobs initially estimated to be affected by the adjustment. According to the New York newspaper, the pending layoffs will take place in the coming weeks and will mainly affect areas of the corporate center.
The company has never publicly quantified the number of layoffs, although a company executive, Dave Limp, senior vice president of Devices and Services, the division where the cuts were initially concentrated, confirmed last November the launch of the themselves in a public message addressed to the staff.
Limp mentioned the “unusual and uncertain macroeconomic environment” and the need to “prioritize” projects. “After an extensive series of reviews, we have recently decided to consolidate some equipment and programs. One of the consequences of these decisions is that some functions will no longer be necessary. It pains me to have to deliver this news, as we know that as a result of it we will lose talented amazonian of the Devices and Services division. I am incredibly proud of the team we have built and to see even a valued team member leave is not a result any of us want.” then the executive of the company pointed out founded by Bezos.
The wave of layoffs at technology companies added more than 150,000 jobs last year, according to calculations from the website layoffs.fyi, that computes the announcements and news about it. For many technology companies, the pandemic was a golden age thanks to the change in consumer habits. The return to normality, strategy errors, excess hiring and the slowdown in the economy have left a hangover of tens of thousands of layoffs in the sector despite the strength of the US labor market, in which the unemployment rate is close to the minimum of the last 50 years.
The year 2023 has not started on a better footing. Salesforce joins the wave of layoffs from technology companies. The company has approved a cut of approximately 10% of its workforce, which will mean some 8,000 layoffs, as part of a restructuring plan to reduce costs and improve operating margins, according to reported this Wednesday to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC).
In addition to Amazon, among the companies that announced workforce cuts last year is Meta (Facebook), with 11,000 layoffs in part due to losses derived from its failed bid for the metaverse. Twitter cut its workforce of 7,500 workers in half with the arrival of Elon Musk, followed by a wave of resignations by hundreds of employees. The Snap social network announced in August the dismissal of 20% of its payroll, more than 1,000 workers, after a slowdown in its growth and multimillion-dollar losses. Connected stationary bike maker Peloton joined in October with more than 4,000 employees and Netflix with about 500.
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