In a company memo, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced that 9,000 employees will be laid off in the next couple of weeks.
“The overriding tenet of our annual planning this year was to be leaner while doing so in a way that enables us to still invest robustly in the key long-term customer experiences that we believe can meaningfully improve customers’ lives and Amazon as a whole,” Jassy said, per CNBC.
When was the announcement made? NPR reported that the announcement came Monday and that the layoffs will take place over the next couple of weeks into April.
Jassy detailed that layoffs were coming due to the “uncertain economy,” according to The Verge.
The Deseret News reported of previous layoffs in January and late last year.
What’s been said: “This was a difficult decision, but one that we think is best for the company long term,” Jassy said in the memo, per Amazon.
Reuters reported that other technology companies have been laying off employees including Microsoft and Alphabet.
“I don’t think this means much for other companies, except that all will be more careful before allowing their headcount to balloon in the future,” Michael Pachter, Wedbush Securities analyst, said.
Why were the layoffs split? The Verge reported that late last year Amazon had already laid off 18,000 people.
“Some may ask why we didn’t announce these role reductions with the ones we announced a couple months ago,” Jassy continued, according to NBC affiliate KCRA. “The short answer is that not all of the teams were done with their analyses in the late fall; and rather than rush through these assessments without the appropriate diligence, we chose to share these decisions as we’ve made them so people had the information as soon as possible.”