Published , by TJ Denzer
Published , by TJ Denzer
Normally, the holiday season is when retail-heavy groups like Amazon (AMZN) would increase headcount to prepare for all of the holiday shopping that is expected to happen. However, with the global economy in a poor state going into the 2022 holiday season, Amazon is instead preparing to cut a large chunk of its workforce. The company is reportedly preparing to lay off 10,000 employees starting this week, one of the largest workforce cuts in the company’s history.
Details on the upcoming layoffs at Amazon were recently shared by sources familiar with the matter, as reported by The New York Times. According to reports, Amazon is scaling back its workforce, which has apparently ballooned since 2019. Amazon reported that it had around 798,000 employees at the end of 2019. However, that number grew to a reported 1.6 million part-time and full-time employees by December 2021. With this in mind, the company is set to engage in one its largest layoffs ever, including employees in devices organization, retail division, and human resources departments. The layoff will remove less than one percent of Amazon’s overall employees and about three percent of its corporate employees. The final count on layoffs is also said to be fluid.
Amazon follows suit with a number of other tech companies that have laid off a large number of employees this season. Most recently, it was Meta (formerly Facebook) that had a mass layoff, cutting around 11,000 employees from its workforce to cover major losses by the company, especially those in virtual reality research and development, which cost the company $3.67 billion USD in its Q3 2022. Twitter has also faced massive layoffs in the wake of Elon Musk taking over the platform for $44 billion USD.
Nonetheless, Amazon’s major firing as the company enters the holiday season is notable, especially in retail. Stay tuned as we continue to follow for further updates and details on this story.