Amazon CEO confirms more than 18,000 layoffs after figure leaked by ‘one of our teammates’

Amazon CEO Andy Jaffy said Wednesday the company’s latest overhaul will result in more than 18,000 job cuts, a confirmation that comes shortly after a report earlier today in the Wall Street Journal refers to the total number of employees affected by the downsizing that began in November.

“Usually we wait to communicate these findings until we can talk to the people who will be directly affected. However, since one of our teammates shared this information externally, we decided it was better to share this news earlier so you could hear the details directly from me,” Jaffy wrote in a company blog post this evening. “We plan to communicate with affected employees (or employee representatives in Europe where appropriate) from January 18.”

In November, Amazon cut back on its hardware and books businesses, along with voluntary discount offers for some in the company’s People, Experience and Technology (PXT) businesses.

Jaffey wrote today that several additional teams will be affected by the latest cuts this month, with “most of the role cuts occurring in our Amazon Stores and PXT organizations.”

“S-Team and I recognize that this role reversal is difficult for people, and we do not take these decisions lightly or underestimate the impact they can have on the lives of those affected,” he wrote. “We are advocating for those affected and offering packages that include divorce benefits, transitional health insurance benefits and outplacement support.”

Read his full blog post below.

The news comes on a day when an investor floated the idea that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos could return to run the company, which has seen a rough year in 2022 along with many others in the tech sector. Bezos, the company’s founder and former CEO, handed the reins to Jassy in July 2021.

Amazon alone lost 50% of its share price, the company’s biggest drop since the dot-com bubble burst in 2000. The losses resulted in a loss of $840 billion in market value in just one year, along with about $100 billion in dollars in Bezos’ personal wealth.

As part of its third-quarter earnings report in October, Amazon forecast that total sales would rise just 2% to 8% year over year in 2023. Earlier this week, it said in an SEC filing that it secured an $8 billion loan for “general corporate purposes” amid market uncertainty.

Here is Jassy’s blog post:

As I shared in November, as part of our 2023 annual planning process, leaders across the company have been working with their teams, looking at their workforce, investments they want to make for the future, and prioritizing what’s most important to customers and long . -term – long-term health of our companies. This year’s assessment was more difficult given the uncertain economy and the fact that we’ve been hiring quickly over the past few years. In November, we announced difficult decisions to eliminate a number of jobs in our Devices and Books businesses, and also announced a voluntary redundancy offer for some employees in our People, Experience and Technology (PXT) organization. I also shared that we are not done with our annual planning process and that I expect further feature reduction in early 2023.

Today I wanted to share the outcome of that further review, which was the difficult decision to drop additional roles. Between the cuts we made in November and the cuts we’re sharing today, we plan to cut just over 18,000 features. Several teams are affected; However, most role eliminations occur in our Amazon stores and PXT organizations.

S-Team and I recognize that this role reversal is difficult for people and we do not take these decisions lightly or underestimate the impact they can have on the lives of those affected. We work to support those affected and offer packages that include divorce benefits, temporary medical insurance and out of job placement assistance.

We usually hold back on communicating these findings until we can talk to the people directly affected. However, since one of our teammates shared this information externally, we decided it’s better to share this news earlier so you can hear the details directly from me. We plan to communicate with affected employees (or employee representatives in Europe where appropriate) from 18 January.

Amazon has weathered uncertain and difficult economies in the past, and we will continue to do so. These changes will help us pursue our long-term opportunities with a stronger cost structure; However, I am also optimistic that in this age, where we are not hiring many people and eliminating some functions, we will be resourceful, imaginative and sloppy. Long-standing companies go through different phases. You are not in high performance expansion mode every year. We often talk about our Invent and Simplify leadership principle when developing new products and features. There will be many of them in all areas of business that we pursue. But sometimes we miss the importance of the critical invention, problem-solving, and simplification required to figure out what matters most to customers (and the business), adjust where we spend our resources and time, and find a way doing more for customers lowers costs (savings are passed on to customers). Both types of Invent and Simplify are very important.

To those affected by this discount, I want you to know how grateful I am for your contributions to Amazon and the work you have done on behalf of customers. You have decisively changed the lives of many clients. To those who continue the journey with us, I look forward to working with you to make customers’ lives better and easier every day, and relentlessly figuring out how to do it.

andy