Amazon to cut off around 9,000 more positions

By Ovunc Kutlu

ISTANBUL (AA) - Amazon announced Monday it will cut off around 9,000 more positions in the next few weeks, as the US tech industry continues to lay off employees due to financial hurdles.

"For several years leading up to this one, most of our businesses added a significant amount of headcount. This made sense given what was happening in our businesses and the economy as a whole," CEO Andy Jassy said in a memo to employees that was published on the company's website.

"However, given the uncertain economy in which we reside, and the uncertainty that exists in the near future, we have chosen to be more streamlined in our costs and headcount," he added.

Jassy stressed that Amazon's annual planning this year has to be "leaner" that enables it to invest in customers for the long-term.

The e-retail major had announced in November it was planning to trim 10,000 jobs in its devices, recruiting departments, Alexa unit and Luna cloud gaming division.

The firm later said in December it has begun cutting 18,000 employees from its workforce -- the biggest layoff in the company's history.

The company’s workforce doubled during the coronavirus pandemic to meet high demand in e-commerce, climbing to more than 1.6 million by the end of 2021, up from 800,000 at the end of 2019.

"Some may ask why we didn’t announce these role reductions with the ones we announced a couple months ago," Jassy wrote in the memo. "The short answer is that not all of the teams were done with their analyses in the late fall; and rather than rush through these assessments without the appropriate diligence, we chose to share these decisions as we’ve made them so people had the information as soon as possible."

Amazon is one of tech firms cutting jobs as the industry is struggling with lower income, falling ad revenue and fears of a recession.

Yahoo, Disney, Affirm, Zoom, Dell, IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce, PayPal and Google's parent, Alphabet, have been laying off workers by the thousands in past weeks.

Stock price of Amazon fell Monday to as low as $95.70 per share on the Nasdaq for a 3.3% daily loss, before showing some recovery to $97.43 at 11.37 a.m. EDT, after closing Friday at $98.95 a share.