Last month, Amazon announced its second round of layoffs, which began on Wednesday. This second round of job cuts will affect 9,000 employees in several areas, starting with its cloud service operation and human resources divisions.
Amazon Web Services (AWS), the company’s most profitable sector, is slowing sales. According to the layoff notice, AWS will lay off US, Canadian, and Costa Rican workers first. CEO Adam Selipsky and Human Resources Head Beth Galetti informed affected staff early Wednesday of the layoffs.
Amazon announced 9,000 layoffs earlier.
“It is a tough day across our organization,” AWS CEO Adam Selipsky stated in an internal memo obtained by CNBC. “Difficult decision to eliminate some roles across Amazon globally, including within AWS, and the conversations with impacted AWS employees started today, with notification messages sent to all impacted employees in the US, Canada, and Costa Rica,” he said.
“We are working hard to treat everyone impacted with respect and 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 added in the memo to Amazonians.
In March, CEO Andy Jassy announced 9,000 job layoffs on top of the 18,000 disclosed in November and January. Amazon laid off numerous advertising employees on April 18th as part of this plan.
Amazon lowered costs by freezing hiring, halting projects, and reducing warehouse development due to economic fears. Last month, Amazon CEO Andy Jassey remarked that due to the economy and “uncertainty that exists in the near future,” Amazon has streamlined.
Amazon, like Facebook’s parent firm Meta and Google’s parent company Alphabet, increased recruiting during the pandemic to fulfill homebound Americans’ online buying needs. During the epidemic, companies, government organizations, and schools hastened their cloud migration, helping Amazon and other cloud providers.
Layoffs are part of Amazon’s plan to cut costs amid falling revenue.
“However, in recent months, both AWS and advertisements have suffered slower growth due to corporations decreasing their spending in a difficult economic situation. As a result, the corporation trimmed costs, including staff. Earlier layoffs included certain AWS teams.
“Given [our] rapid growth, as well as the overall business and macroeconomic climate, it is critical that we focus on identifying and putting our resources behind our top priorities-those things that matter most to customers and that will move the needle for our business,” Selipsky writes. “In many cases this means team members are shifting the projects, initiatives or teams on which they work; however, in other cases it has resulted in these role eliminations.”
“We are focused on continuing to innovate in the areas that matter most to our customers as we help them minimise expense, innovate rapidly, and transform their organisations,” said Selipsky.
Selipsky added that job losses outside North America would follow local protocols, including talks with employee groups as necessary by law. AWS recruiters and the “Just Walk Out” technical group were previously laid off.
Recruiting, HR, retail, and device teams were hit in the first cuts. The HR group, which has been reduced and offered buyouts since November, was cut again on Wednesday. Beth Galetti, leader of the People Experience and Technology team (HR), disclosed the latest cuts in an email on Wednesday, acknowledging the impact on departing and staying staff.
“These decisions are not taken lightly, and I recognize the impact it will have across both those transitioning out of the company as well as our colleagues who remain,” HR head Beth Galetti addressed Amazonians.
Halo shut down by Amazon
Amazon also announced the closing of its Halo health and sleep tracker subsidiary on Wednesday. Amazon will reimburse Halo device orders made in the past year after discontinuing Halo services on July 31. The corporation has notified US and Canadian employees, although the number is unknown.
In 2020, the Halo division started with the Halo band, a fitness tracker that offered health monitoring and analysis. The division later released Halo View, a contactless sleep tracker, and Halo Rise, a smart alarm clock.