In the latest saga of the ongoing tech layoffs, Amazon employees are the latest to get the short end of the stick.
Amazon is planning to lay off 10,000 employees starting this week, as reported by New York Times. This will be the largest job cut in the company’s history.
The layoffs will be of Amazon’s devices, especially in Alexa, along with retail and human resources departments.
The move is expected to impact under 3% of the corporate and 1% of the retail staff of Amazon’s 1.5 million global workforces. The latter consists mostly of hourly workers on a contract.
This news came a week after Meta announced a cut of 13%, translating to 13,000 of their workforce.
The stock market is brutal
The rising stress in the global economy saw Amazon’s shares lose $1 trillion in value. This prompted a meeting of Amazon investors last week.
The pandemic was the most profitable period for Amazon. This led them to double their workforce and expand their investment to keep up with the growth.
However, the growth was short-lived as the pandemic came to shore in most parts of the world. Inflation soared along with changes in spending patterns. This led to the slowest growth since 2001 for the retail giants.