There’s no end to the wave of layoffs in the tech industry. According to reports, Amazon plans to lay off around 10,000 employees in the course of the week. This would mark the largest mass layoff in the history of the US corporation.
Online retailer Amazon apparently plans to lay off around 10,000 employees. This is according to a report in the New York Times (NYT). According to the report, the layoffs would affect around one to three percent of the company’s total workforce.
Amazon plans mass layoffs: Around 10,000 employees affected
After Facebook parent company Meta with 11,000 layoffs, Amazon would thus rank second among the companies with the most layoffs this year. By comparison, the U.S. company still reported 798,000 employees at the end of 2019.
By December 2021, the company already had 1.6 million full- and part-time employees. This corresponds to an increase of 102 percent. Meanwhile, Amazon’s planned job cuts would usher in the most extensive wave of layoffs in its history.
Hiring freeze and cost-cutting measures
Due to falling sales and the current economic situation, Amazon had previously imposed a hiring freeze. The goal of CEO and Jeff Bezos successor Andy Jassy is primarily to reduce running costs. The stock has lost about 40 percent of its value this year.
According to the NYT, however, the exact number of employees in the impending job cuts has not yet been determined. The mentioned number of 10,000 employees could still change – both upwards and downwards. Meanwhile, the layoffs would come at a time when the mail-order company is actually hiring employees. After all, the Christmas season is a busy time for Amazon.
