November 14 (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) It plans to lay off about 10,000 employees in corporate and technology roles starting this week, a person familiar with the matter said Monday, in what amounts to the largest such cut yet.
Cuts, I mentioned earlier before New York times, will represent about 3% of Amazon’s employees. The exact number may vary as companies within Amazon review their priorities, the source told Reuters.
The online retailer plans to cut jobs at its hardware organization, which makes voice-controlled “Alexa” gadgets and home security cameras, as well as in its human resources and retail departments, the person said. Amazon’s timeframe for notifying employees remained unclear.
The source attributed the decline to the uncertain macroeconomic environment faced by Amazon and other companies.
The news comes on the heels of a wave of layoffs across the tech sector, which is worried about stagnating after years of rapid hiring. Just last week, Facebook subsidiary Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) It said it would cut more than 11,000 jobs, or 13% of its workforce, to curb costs.
Seattle-based Amazon expects a slowdown in sales growth during the normally profitable holiday season.
On a call with reporters last month, Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky said the company has seen signs of tightening household budgets for shopping, and continues to grapple with rising inflation and energy costs.
since then He said It will freeze the progressive hiring of companies for several months.
Amazon’s hardware unit has in some recent years posted an annual operating loss of more than $5 billion, The Wall Street Journal I mentioned last week. The report said the company considered whether to focus on Alexa’s new capabilities when some customers use the voice assistant for a handful of tasks.
Companywide, taking into account warehouse and transportation jobs, which brings Amazon’s employee count to more than 1.5 million as of Sept. 30, the planned cuts amount to less than 1% of the retailer’s workforce.
Amazon shares have lost more than 40% of their value this year. They fell 1.1% to $99.67 on Monday afternoon.
Additional reporting by Jeffrey Dustin in Palo Alto, California, Tyachi Datta and Nivedita Palu in Bengaluru, Editing by Arun Koyoor and Matthew Lewis
Our standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
“Devoted student. Bacon advocate. Beer scholar. Troublemaker. Falls down a lot. Typical coffee enthusiast.”