Amazon layoff to exceed 18,000 employees: CEO Andy Jassy

Key Takeaways: 

1. Amazon's layoff, which was previously estimated to be around 10,000, will mount by 80%. 
2. The company's job-slashing plan is the largest among recent workforce reductions that have impacted the US tech sector.
3. Prompted by the uncertain economy and the rapid hiring by the company are the reasons behind the mass layoff wave.
4.  In the 28 years of Amazon's history, the sudden laying off of 18,000 employees would be the largest to date.
5. The Amazon workforce impacted by the layoff will be informed by the start of January 18. 

Dive Brief:

• Amazon's CEO Andy Jassy suddenly announced 18,000 job cuts from its workforce after one of its employees leaked the information externally.
• Andy Jassy stated that the company's leadership knows that role elimination would be difficult for people, so the decisions made would not be taken lightly.
• The decision to cut massive job roles is solely the result of the rapid hiring that Amazon made during the COVID-19 pandemic to meet the online shopping demand. 
• Termination will be done among the company's 1.5 million employees, which stands as the second largest private employer in the US after Walmart.

Dive Insight:

• As per the message shared by Amazon's CEO Andy Jassy on January 4, 18,000 company employees will lose their job owing to mass layoff, which was earlier estimated to be 10,000 in November last year. The company's e-commerce and human resources organizations will be most impacted by the mass layoff. 
• Benefits like transitional health insurance, separate payments, and external job placement support would be provided to all the workers affected by the layoff process. 
• Post-pandemic, customers started returning to their traditional form of shopping by directly visiting the stores, which led to a fall in demand for online shopping. As a result, Amazon decided to shred some jobs to decrease its cost/expenditure.
• After acquiring Twitter in October, Elon Musk fired about half of the social media platform's workforce, i.e., 75000. Later last year, Facebook parent ‘Meta’ had a 13% reduction in its total workforce, i.e., 11,000 job cuts in November.

According to Andy Jassy's words to his employees, he is grateful for all their efforts and contributions to Amazon.