Amazon CEO says company will axe more than 18,000 jobs

Amazon's layoffs will now increase to more than 18,000 roles as part of a workforce reduction it previously disclosed, chief executive Andy Jassy said in a public staff note on Wednesday.

The layoff decisions, which Amazon will communicate starting Jan. 18, will largely impact the company's e-commerce and human resources organizations, he said. Jassy's note did not specify in which countries the cuts will occur.

CBC News reached out to the company to ask whether employees in Canada will be affected by the layoffs. The company attached Jassy's note in response.

The cuts amount to six per cent of Amazon's roughly 300,000-person corporate workforce, and represent a swift turn for a retailer that recently doubled its base pay ceiling to compete more aggressively for talent.

Amazon has more than 1.5 million workers globally, including warehouse staff, and is the second-largest private employer in the U.S., after Walmart.

Its stock was up 1.8 per cent to $86.71 US in pre-market trading on Thursday.

'We don't know how this will affect us': unions

A spokesperson for London-based trade union GMB said it was aware of the job cuts, but that its members will not be affected by the plans.

Members belonging to the union who work at the Amazon warehouse in Coventry, central England, are planning to stage a walkout on Jan. 25 over a pay row with the e-commerce giant.

Laurent Degoussee of the SUD union in France said the plans would not affect the company's Amazon Logistique France unit.

Douglas Harper, a spokesperson for Spain's largest trade union, CCOO, criticized what he said was a total lack of information from the company.

"We don't know how this will affect us in Spain," Harper told Reuters. "We can assume that this is the first step preceding layoffs in the rest of operations, not just the corporate workforce, but we don't have any official data."

Ritesh Kotak, a cybersecurity and tech analyst based in Toronto, told CBC News that while the layoffs were expected, their scope wasn't.

"The number itself seems to be surprising and also where they're cutting, as well, kind of took me by storm," Kotak said. Amazon has been investing in automation for several years, but those impacts are usually felt most within its warehouse operations, he added.

"It's interesting also to see the cuts in HR and marketing and what that may symbolize for the company," Kotak said. "Just like every other tech organization, [Amazon] has essentially hired more during the start of the pandemic and underestimated what the long-term demand was going to be in their sector."

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Jassy said in the note that annual planning "has been more difficult given the uncertain economy and that we've hired rapidly over the last several years."

Amazon has braced for likely slower growth as soaring inflation encouraged businesses and consumers to cut back spending. Its share price has halved in the past year.

The company began letting staff go in November from its devices division, with a source telling Reuters at the time it was targeting around 10,000 cuts.

Wave of tech layoffs to continue

The global tech industry shed more than 150,000 workers in 2022, according to tracking site Layoffs.fyi, a number that's continuing to grow.

Salesforce said Wednesday it planned to eliminate about 10 per cent of staff globally, or about 8,000 people, as of Oct. 31.

The reversal of Amazon's fortunes has been stark. It changed from a business deemed essential during the pandemic for delivering goods to locked-down homes, to a company that overbuilt for demand.

Its layoffs now surpass the 11,000 cuts announced last year by Facebook parent company Meta.

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Jassy's note followed a report in the Wall Street Journal that the reduction would be more than 17,000 jobs. He said Amazon chose to disclose the news before informing affected staff because of a leak.

Amazon must still file certain legal notices about mass layoffs, and it plans to pay severance.

Jassy said, "Amazon has weathered uncertain and difficult economies in the past, and we will continue to do so."