Online retailer Amazon has announced it will cut about 14,000 jobs as part of a major restructuring. The optimization will affect employees in the corporate division, Beth Galetti, senior vice president of human resources and technology, wrote on the company's blog.
"Today's cuts are a continuation of our efforts to strengthen the company by reducing bureaucracy, removing unnecessary layers of management, and reallocating resources to invest in our highest priorities and what matters most to our customers' current and future needs," the post reads.
The day before, Reuters sources told us that the total number of layoffs could reach 30,000 people. This is only a small part of Amazon's total staff of 1.55 million people, but almost 10% of corporate employees.
Amazon shares were up 0.6% at the premarket on Oct. 28. Since the beginning of the year, the company's value has added 3.5%. It has the worst dynamics among the securities of the "Magnificent Seven".
Context
The leadership period of Amazon CEO Andy Jassy was marked by a series of layoffs and the closure of a number of projects. In late 2022 and early 2023, he initiated phased layoffs that resulted in the elimination of about 27,000 corporate positions, Bloomberg recalls .
Jassy signaled in June that Amazon's headcount is likely to shrink further as the company increases its use of artificial intelligence in tasks that used to be done by humans. According to a Reuters source familiar with the situation, the CEO insists that more processes need to be automated, and the company itself, despite the cuts of the past three years, remains over-bloated after a period of mass hiring during the coronavirus pandemic.
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