The platform could become the last American tech giant to date to cut its workforce, after Twitter or Meta.
Amazon is preparing to lay off about 10,000 employees according to the New York Times. The online sales platform would thus become the latest American tech giant to respond to the economic crisis with a large-scale social plan. This would represent just under 1% of the group’s payroll, which had 1.6 million employees worldwide at the end of 2021.
A significant portion of these staff is made up of seasonal workers, recruited during periods of increased activity, particularly for the end-of-year holidays. According to New York Times, the positions concerned will be located in the Amazon Devices department (electronic devices equipped with the Alexa voice assistant or Kindle readers), in the retail division as well as in human resources. However, the breakdown by country is not specified.
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The American daily also specifies that the total number of dismissed employees is likely to change. If confirmed, it would be the largest redundancy plan in the company’s history. Contacted by AFP, Amazon did not react immediately. The company had already announced a hiring freeze in its offices two weeks ago.
Last Wednesday, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, announced the loss of 11,000 jobs, or about 13% of its workforce. Two Silicon Valley companies, online payment services specialist Stripe and chauffeur-driven car booking platform Lyft, have also recently announced large-scale layoffs. Twitter, freshly acquired by Elon Musk, has fired about half of its 7,500 employees.
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