Technology giant Amazon said on Thursday its previously announced global layoffs will increase to more than 18,000 employees due to an “uncertain economy”. The company, which employs around 10,000 people in India, will start communicating to those impacted from January 18.
The job cuts—around 80 per cent higher than earlier estimates—are a part of Amazon’s annual operating planning review process. The layoffs will impact several teams but the majority of role eliminations will be at Amazon Stores and PXT organizations, said chief executive officer Andy Jassy in a note to employees.
The job cuts are nearly 6 per cent of Amazon’s 300,000-person corporate workforce and represent a swift turn for a company that recently doubled its base pay ceiling to compete more aggressively for talent.
“This year’s review has been more difficult given the uncertain economy and that we’ve hired rapidly over the last several years. In November, we communicated the hard decision to eliminate a number of positions across our Devices and Books businesses, and also announced a voluntary reduction offer for some employees in our People, Experience, and Technology (PXT) organization,” said Jassy.
Amazon’s announcement marks a continuation of slump in jobs offered by global tech companies. Facebook-parent Meta, Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, Stripe, and Twitter announced a big reduction in their headcounts last year.
Amazon India said last year it will shut down its distribution, food delivery and edtech divisions by end of 2023, citing the same review process. When the job cuts were first announced in November, 200-300 staffers were expected to be laid off in the India unit, sources had said, adding that attempts would be made to absorb as many within the different business units of the company as possible. Only those for whom it is unable to find a good fit would be asked to go, the sources said.
Email queries sent to Amazon India remained unanswered till the time of publishing this story.
Manish Tiwary, vice-president and country manager, consumer business, Amazon India, told Business Standard in December that the company will continue to hire in India and invest to create infrastructure in the market.
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