The latest round of Amazon layoffs will impact AWS, Twitch, advertising and PXT, CEO Andy Jassy said.
Amazon will fire about 9,000 more workers from several business units, including AWS, in the coming weeks, according to a statement released today by company CEO Andy Jassy. The announcement comes two months after .
In his official statement, Jassy said that most of the layoffs in this second round will affect employees at AWS, PXT (People Experience and Technology, the company鈥檚 HR arm), Advertising, and Twitch, the popular livestreaming service purchased by Amazon in 2014 for nearly $1 billion.
Jassy also wrote that the company would provide severance pay, transitional health insurance and assistance with job placement.
鈥淪ome may ask why we didn鈥檛 announce these role reductions with the ones we announced a couple months ago,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淭he short answer is that not all of the teams were done with their analyses in the late fall; and rather than rush through these assessments without the appropriate diligence, we chose to share these decisions as we鈥檝e made them so people had the information as soon as possible.鈥�
Amazon is far from the only tech company to make major staffing cuts in recent months 鈥� just this month, employees, over and above the 11,000 job cuts that it announced four months ago. , which became public in late February, has seen the social media firm reduced to around 2,000 employees, sharply down from 7,500 immediately before Elon Musk鈥檚 controversial takeover.
After a year in which technology companies announced massive layoffs, are looking no different 鈥� in fact, the year is starting off worse than 2022. Facing an uncertain global economy, technology companies have accelerated the pace of layoffs in 2023, after sweeping job cuts rocked the industry last year. In all, about 162,000 tech workers have lost their jobs this year,
One narrative around these layoffs has been that . The news today that AWS 鈥� one of Amazon鈥檚 biggest revenue-generating businesses 鈥� has been affected is a new wrinkle. Even AWS has not been immune to current macroeconomic conditions. Revenue growth slowed sharply in the fourth quarter of 2022, to 20% in year-on-year terms. That鈥檚 well below the 27.5% and 33% figures seen in the previous two quarters. Nor is it the only to experience slowing growth, with both Microsoft and Google reporting slight but noticeable downturns in the same quarter.
Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky, on a recent earnings call, said that the company expects economic conditions to continue to act as a brake on revenues for the better part of 2023.
鈥淎s we look ahead, we expect these optimization efforts (reduced spending) will continue to be a headwind to AWS growth in at least the next couple of quarters,鈥� he said.
