Amazon deepens tech-sector gloom with another 9,000 lay-offs
- Amazon will have eliminated 27,000 positions in recent months, or 9 per cent of its roughly 300,000-strong corporate workforce
- In a note to staff that Amazon posted online, its CEO Andy Jassy said the decision stemmed from an ongoing analysis of priorities and uncertainty about the economy
Amazon.com on Monday said it would axe another 9,000 roles, piling on to a wave of lay-offs that has swept the technology sector as an uncertain economy forces companies to get leaner.
In a remarkable turn for a company that has long touted its job creation, Amazon will have eliminated 27,000 positions in recent months, or 9 per cent of its roughly 300,000-strong corporate workforce.
The latest cuts focus on Amazon’s highly-profitable cloud and advertising divisions, once seen as untouchable until economic concerns led business customers to scrutinise their spending.
The lay-offs will also affect Amazon’s streaming unit Twitch. Dan Clancy, who was named as CEO of Twitch last week, said the platform will lay off more than 400 employees.
Amazon aims to finalise whom it will terminate in the new round of job cuts by April.
The decision follows a near-endless drumbeat of lay-off news in the technology sector that has seen some of the world’s most valuable corporations, among them Microsoft Corp and Google parent Alphabet, sever ties with staggering numbers of employees they once courted in droves.
