"Amazon to cut another 9,000 jobs in new round of layoffs", 20 March 2023

Amazon is to cut 9,000 jobs across its global business, as the second big cull of staff at the online retailer this year.

The company said the cuts would fall mostly in its cloud services, advertising and Twitch livestreaming units. They come more than two months after Amazon announced it had expanded staff-cutting plans to affect more than 18,000 workers. In January it also revealed separate plans to shut three UK warehouses and seven delivery stations, affecting more than 1,200 further jobs.

Amazon’s chief executive, Andy Jassy, said in a letter to workers that the company had added a substantial amount of staff in the past few years, but the uncertain economy has forced it to choose cost and headcount cuts. Amazon employs more than 1.5 million people worldwide.

The second round of deep cuts follows a similar move by Meta, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram. Last week it announced plans to cut a further 10,000 jobs this year and also instituted a hiring freeze, having already announced 11,000 job cuts in November last year.

In his letter to workers on Monday, Jassy said: “As we’ve just concluded the second phase of our operating plan this past week, I’m writing to share that we intend to eliminate about 9,000 more positions in the next few weeks – mostly in AWS, PXT, advertising and Twitch.