- Amazon is planning to cut over 18,000 jobs — the highest number of layoffs in its history — as a result of an “uncertain economy,” according to the tech giant.
- The majority of job cuts will be in Amazon Stores, including Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go, and in the company’s PXT organizations.
- The company’s CEO, Andy Jassy, has stated that the job cuts will help the company pursue its “long-term opportunities with a stronger cost structure.”
Amazon, one of the largest and most powerful tech companies in the world, is cutting over 18,000 jobs in a restructuring effort.
This marks the largest round of layoffs in the company’s history and follows similar job cuts at other major tech firms, including Twitter, Facebook parent company Meta and other Silicon Valley firms, amid an uncertain economy.
The majority of the job cuts at Amazon will be in its Stores division, which includes Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go, as well as in its PXT organizations that handle human resources and other functions.
While these layoffs represent only a small fraction of Amazon’s massive global workforce of 1.5 million employees, they come on top of a hiring freeze that the company implemented last year in response to similar layoffs at other tech giants like Twitter and Facebook.
The layoffs at Salesforce and Vimeo, meanwhile, represent approximately 8,000 and 11% of their respective workforces. The executives at these companies have cited the uncertain economy as the reason for the job cuts, but some have also acknowledged that they may have over-hired during the pandemic.
According to the Independent, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a note to employees: “Today, I wanted to share the outcome of these further reviews, which is the difficult decision to eliminate additional roles. Between the reductions we made in November and the ones we’re sharing today, we plan to eliminate just over 18,000 roles.”
According to layoffs.fyi, a website that tracks job cuts in the tech industry, the current economic system resulted in the layoff of over 150,000 employees last year in the tech sector alone.
These layoffs demonstrate the inherent instability and lack of concern for workers within the capitalist system, as companies prioritize profit over the well-being and security of their employees. This trend highlights the need for alternative economic systems that prioritize the needs and protections of workers.
Economic Left 
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