As part of CEO Andy Jassy’s effort to reduce costs, Amazon began laying off advertising employees on Tuesday, the company confirmed.
According to a copy of the memo shared by an Amazon spokesperson, Amazon’s senior vice president of advertising, IMDb, and Grand Challenge, Paul Kotas, notified employees of the reductions.
Kotas wrote, “As Andy mentioned a few weeks ago, throughout the 2023 planning process, we have meticulously prioritized our resources with an eye toward maximizing customer benefits and the long-term health of our business.”
Some staff in Amazon’s advertising division have been let go.
“For Ads, this process entailed reallocating resources by relocating team members, slowing down or halting certain programs, or concluding that we lacked the necessary skills to address our priorities. As a result, a small percentage of our organization’s roles have been eliminated as a result of decisions made after careful deliberation regarding the best way to proceed.”
According to two affected employees, the company began notifying workers of their layoffs via email on Tuesday morning. These individuals requested anonymity because they lacked the authority to comment on the issue.
Amazon notified affected employees via email that layoffs will commence on June 20, or July 17 if they reside in New York and New Jersey, following a 60- to 90-day transition period during which they will be able to search for another position within the company.
The layoffs are part of 9,000 planned employment cuts.
It is unknown how many employees will be laid off across the advertising unit. Jassy announced last month that Amazon would lay off an additional 9,000 employees, in addition to the 18,000 layoffs announced in November and January. Earlier layoffs were concentrated in retail, devices, recruiting, and human resources departments.
Jassy stated in March that the latest round of layoffs would affect employees in Amazon’s advertising, cloud computing, Twitch livestreaming, and human resources departments. In the video games division of Amazon, approximately 100 employees were also laid off earlier this month.
Amazon laid off 18,000 staff in November and January.
Following a massive recruiting spree during the Covid pandemic, Amazon is undergoing the largest layoffs in its 29-year history. The company’s global workforce increased from 798 thousand in the fourth quarter of 2019 to more than 1.6 million by the end of 2021.
In light of the economic downturn and sluggish growth in its primary retail business, Jassy is also undertaking a comprehensive review of the company’s expenses. Amazon froze corporate hiring, terminated a number of experimental initiatives, and slowed warehouse expansion.
Jassy has demonstrated that two of Amazon’s largest and most profitable businesses are not impervious to cost-cutting by announcing layoffs in the advertising and Amazon Web Services departments.