Amazon To Cut 9,000 More Jobs

Amazon has said it plans to cut a further 9,000 jobs as it continues a cost-cutting drive that has already seen a major job cull earlier this year.

Chief executive Andy Jassy called the move a “difficult decision”.

Amazon, which employs more than 1.5 million people around the world, said the cuts would mainly affect cloud computing, advertising and the Twitch livestreaming service.

Amazon bought Twitch for $1 billion (£820m) in 2014.

Cost-cutting

Last Thursday Twitch chief executive Emmett Shear said he would be stepping down immediately after holding the post for 16 years.

In early January Amazon said it would expand existing cost-cutting plans to more than 18,000 staff.

Later in the month it said it would close three warehouses in the UK this year, affecting about 1,200 staff at facilities in Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire, Doncaster in South Yorkshire and Gourock in Scotland.

Jassy said in a letter to staff that Amazon had grown substantially in the past few years, but that the uncertain economy had forced it to look for cost and headcout cuts.

He said it was “never easy” to lose employees.

Economic uncertainty

“To those ultimately impacted by these reductions, I want to thank you for the work you have done on behalf of customers and the company,” Jassy wrote.

Amazon’s other cost-cutting measures have included pausing the construction of part of its second headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia, as well as slowing the expansion of its global distribution centres, warehouses and other facilities and a pause on corporate hiring late last year.

Other tech giants including Facebook and Instagram parent Meta, Google and Twitter have also substantially cut their workforces.

The cuts are in part due to a slowing global economy and partly also due to tech companies’ rapid expansion during the pandemic, something Jassy acknowledged in his letter.