Amazon plans to cut 9,000 jobs in the coming weeks.
CEO Andy Jassy said in a memo Monday that the jobs will mostly come from technology branches of the company, advertising and its livestreaming service Twitch. The layoffs are in addition to the 18,000 positions that were eliminated in the last few months.
"Given the uncertain economy in which we reside, and the uncertainty that exists in the near future, we have chosen to be more streamlined in our costs and headcount," Jassy stated.
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The exact positions that will be eliminated are still being worked out, according to Jassy.
"We will, of course, support those we have to let go, and will provide packages that include a separation payment, transitional health insurance benefits, and external job placement support," Jassy said.
The latest round of layoffs are another blow to the tech sector. Google announced in January that it was cutting 12,000 jobs. Microsoft also announced in January that it was cutting 5% of its workforce. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has also slashed 11,000 jobs in the past couple of months.
Daniel Keum, a professor of management at the Columbia Business School, said the layoffs are a correction to massive growth from the last few years.
“[These companies] were overly optimistic in their ability to grow and the growth never materialized,” said Keum. “I mean Google, Amazon — their existing businesses had gotten so successful, so it’s sort of their past success constraining their future investment.”
The US is facing a critical shortage of high tech engineers
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, between 2016 and 2026 there has been and will be a shortfall of six million engineers, or more.
