Amazon's stock dips 1% as another 9,000 layoffs announced
By Jon Swartz
In a memo to staff, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the cuts would take place over the next few weeks
Amazon.com Inc. is eliminating another 9,000 jobs, the company announced Monday morning.
In a memo to staff, Amazon (AMZN) Chief Executive Andy Jassy said the cuts would take place over the next few weeks and primarily affect Amazon Web Services, People Experience and Technology Solutions, advertising and Twitch. [Twitch CEO Dan Clancy broke the news of 400 layoffs to employees in a blog post later Monday.]
"This was a difficult decision, but one that we think is best for the company long term," Jassy wrote.
"For several years leading up to this one, most of our businesses added a significant amount of headcount," Jassy added. "This made sense given what was happening in our businesses and the economy as a whole. 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."
The news sent the retailer's stock down 1% in trading Monday.
The latest layoffs, amid a challenging macroeconomic climate that has claimed tens of thousands of jobs in the tech industry, follow an earlier round at Amazon, announced in November, that affected more than 18,000 employees. Additionally, Amazon has paused construction of its second headquarters in Virginia.
At the same time, there are rumblings out of the Beltway that the Biden administration is preparing legal actions against Amazon stemming from investigations into its business practices, according to a report in Politico.
Amazon is the second Big Tech company this month to announce additional job cuts. Last week, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. (META), wrote in a blog post the social-networking company would slash 10,000 more employees as it focuses on a "year of efficiency." The move drove Meta shares up 7% and helped the company top $500 billion in market value for the first time since June.
In November, the company said it would cut 11,000 employees, or about 13% of its workforce, in the first layoffs in the company's 18-year history.
-Jon Swartz
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March 21, 2023 08:19 ET (12:19 GMT)
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