Tech giant Amazon plans to lay off a total of 18,000 people, CEO Andy Jassy has announced. It is one of the largest rounds of layoffs at a tech company to date. An earlier rumor pointed to 10,000 layoffs.
Most of the layoffs are in the Amazon Stores and People, Experience, and Technology divisions, Jassy says . Amazon had wanted to wait to announce the round of layoffs, but felt compelled to share it anyway after business newspaper The Wall Street Journal wrote about it . As a result, not everyone affected has yet been informed. Amazon wants to notify employees in about two weeks.
In absolute numbers, the round of layoffs is large, but in a relative sense it is not too bad. According to its own quarterly figures at the end of October, Amazon had a total of more than one and a half million employees, excluding temporary employees and hired workers. The company had grown considerably in recent years, but that growth had already slowed down considerably last autumn. In November it was rumored that the round of layoffs would affect approximately 10,000 employees .
