Amazon.com to axe another 9,000 jobs as tech giants get leaner

On April 16, 2020, the Amazon logo is seen in Douai, northern France. Amazon.com Inc. axed another 9,000 jobs on March 20, 2023. PHOTO AP Amazon.com Inc will axe another 9,000 jobs on Monday, adding to a wave of layoffs that have swept the tech sector as an uncertain economy forces companies to get leaner.

In a remarkable turn for a company that has long touted its job creation, Amazon will have eliminated 27,000 positions in the last few months, or 9% of its 300,000 strong corporate workforce.

The cuts focus on Amazon's highly-profitable cloud and advertising divisions, once seen as untouchable until economic concerns led business customers to scrutinize their spending.

Amazon's streaming unit, Twitch, will be affected by the layoffs. Dan Clancy, who was named CEO of Twitch last week, said the platform will lay off more than 400 employees.

The new round of job cuts is about to be finalized by Amazon by April.

ALSO READ: Microsoft to shed 10,000 jobs, adding to the glut of tech layoffs.

I don't think this means much for other companies, except that all will be more careful before they can allow their headcount to balloon in the future, Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter said.

In a move that seems a harbinger, Facebook's parent Meta Platforms Inc said last week it would cut 10,000 jobs this year, kicking off a second round of layoffs for the sector after it eliminated more than 11,000 positions in 2022.

In a note to staff that Amazon posted online, Andy Jassy, CEO of the company, said the decision stemmed from an ongoing analysis of priorities and uncertainty about the economy.

He wrote that some people may ask why we didn't announce these role reductions with the ones we announced a couple of months ago. In the late fall, not all of the teams were done with their analyses. Due to the uncertain economy in which we reside, and the uncertainty that exists in the near future, we have decided to be more streamlined in our costs and headcount. Amazon said last month that operating profit may continue to slump in the current quarter due to the financial impact of consumers and cloud customers clamping down on spending.

The Athena Coalition, a labor and activist group that is critical of Amazon, said in a statement: "No of these layoffs have to happen." Jassy is trying to make them happen to pad Amazon's bottom line. The company has shut down or slowed entire services, like its virtual primary care offering for employers in recent months.