Amazon to cut 18,000 jobs as tech job purge continues

CEO Andy Jassy confirmed the cuts in a note to staff on Thursday. The layoffs will mainly affect brick-and-mortar stores like Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go, as well as its human resources division, known as PXT.

The online retailer’s chief executive said the review had been difficult citing "uncertain economy” and that Amazon had “hired rapidly over the last several years”.

He said: "We don’t take these decisions lightly or underestimate how much they might affect the lives of those who are impacted.

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"Companies that last a long time go through different phases. They’re not in heavy people expansion mode every year," he added.

In November, it was reported in U.S media that Amazon would be cutting 10,000 jobs.

Jassy said: "Between the reductions we made in November and the ones we’re sharing today, we plan to eliminate just over 18,000 roles. Several teams are impacted; however, the majority of role eliminations are in our Amazon Stores and PXT organizations."

The 18,000 figure represents 6% of the company’s 300,000 person corporate workforce and around 1.2% of the global workforce of over 1.5million.

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The company did not not specify which countries would be affected except that it would include Europe.

Amazon’s sales have slowed in the last year amid rising inflation and supply chain issues after enjoying huge growth during the pandemic as shops were shut customers bought items online.

Software company Salesforce has also announced it would lay off about 10% of its workforce of 73,541, and close some offices.

The companies are the latest to purge thousands of staff in the tech world. Stalwarts such as Meta, Twitter and Microsoft have all announced job cuts.