In its ongoing effort to reduce costs, Amazon plans to eliminate more than 18,000 jobs, which would be a record number for the company.
The online giant, which employs 1.5 million people worldwide, did not identify the nation where jobs would be lost but did say that Europe would be affected.
The majority of the job losses will occur in its retail locations, including Amazon Fresh and Go, as well as its human resources department.
Boss Andy Jassy blamed the cuts on the "uncertain economy," claiming that it had "hired quickly over several years.". ".
In a memo to his staff, he stated, "We don't take these decisions lightly or underestimate how much they might affect the lives of those who are impacted.".
He claimed that one of the company's employees had leaked the layoffs to the outside world, prompting the announcement to be made earlier than planned.
Companies that endure for a long time go through various phases. They don't constantly have a heavy expansion of people, he continued.
Sales at Amazon have slowed since the pandemic, when customers who were bored at home and spent a lot of money online, caused a surge in business.
Tech companies are being hit particularly hard by a potent combination of a decline in advertising revenues as a result of businesses trying to save money and consumers spending less as the cost of living crisis bites.
Other significant tech companies, such as Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, and cloud-based business software provider Salesforce, have also recently announced significant layoffs.
Amazon has already made the announcement that it will scale back on initiatives like the Echo (better known as Alexa) and delivery robots, which were nice-to-haves but weren't actually profitable.
According to anecdotal evidence, Silicon Valley businesses frequently hire and keep talented employees on attractive salaries even when they are not immediately needed, primarily to prevent them from joining competitors. The big tech industry can no longer afford to support this culture.
By January 18, Amazon employees who will be affected by the reductions should know.
The action was taken after the technology behemoth announced last year that it would reduce its headcount without specifying the number of positions that would be lost.
Tech companies are being hit particularly hard by a potent combination of a decline in advertising revenues as a result of businesses trying to save money and consumers spending less as the cost of living crisis bites.
"More suffering lies ahead.".
Having overhired during the pandemic, the company had already stopped taking on new employees and halting some warehouse expansions.
Additionally, it has taken steps to shut down certain areas of its business, postponing initiatives like a personal delivery robot.
According to Ray Wang of the Silicon Valley consulting firm Constellation Research, "tech companies would frequently only remove the bottom 1 percent to 3 percent of their workforce prior to the pandemic.".
Amazon will likely experience "more pain ahead," according to Dan Ives of the investment firm Wedbush Securities, as consumers cut back.
industry-wide reductions.
The global technology sector is losing tens of thousands of jobs as a result of sluggish sales and mounting worries about an impending recession.
Owner of Facebook, Meta, announced in November that it would reduce its workforce by 13%.
There will be 11,000 job losses from an overall headcount of 87,000 due to the social media company's first mass layoffs.
"The most difficult changes we've made in Meta's history," according to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, were the cuts.
After multi-billionaire Elon Musk acquired the company in October, there were significant layoffs at Twitter, where the staff was reduced by about half.
According to LinkedIn posts from workers who claimed to have experienced job cuts, Amazon began making staff cuts as early as November.
The BBC was able to view posts from staff members at Lab126, the company that developed the Kindle e-reader, Amazon's Alexa virtual assistant company, and Luna, a cloud gaming platform.