Following the announcement of 18,000 job losses earlier this year, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said on Monday that he would slash another 9,000 positions from the online retailer's workforce. The company said it was part of a major effort to reduce costs and streamline operations at the e-commerce giant.
In a memo to employees, Jassy said that the uncertain economic situation and the future outlook prompted him to make this decision. He said that the new round of layoffs would happen in the next few weeks, and would mainly affect workers in Amazon Web Services, People Experience and Technology Solutions (PXT), advertising and Twitch.
He wrote in the memo that this was not an easy choice, but one that he believed was best for the long-term health of the company. He also explained why he did not announce these job cuts along with the ones he made a few months ago. He said that some of the teams were still working on their analyses in late fall, and he wanted to give them enough time to do their work properly. He said he shared these decisions as soon as he made them so that people could have access to information quickly.
The latest job cuts at Amazon are part of a wider trend of layoffs in the tech industry in recent months, as it faces a fluctuation in demand for digital products and services due to the pandemic and a general economic uncertainty. Amazon, like many other big tech companies, also hired a lot of people during the early stages of the pandemic. Jassy said on Monday that this made sense given what was happening in their businesses and the economy as a whole. "However, given the uncertain economy in which we reside, and the uncertainty that exists in the near future, we have chosen to be more streamlined in our costs and headcount," he added.