Amazon to slash 9000 jobs in second round of layoffs

US-technology and retail company Amazon has announced a second round of layoffs that will result in around 9,000 job cuts. 

The job cuts would happen across departments such as its cloud division Amazon Web Services (AWS), people, experience and technology (PXT) and advertising. The layoffs will also affect Amazon’s streaming unit Twitch. Dan Clancy, who was named as CEO of Twitch last week, said in the company’s official blog that the platform will lay off more than 400 employees.  

Amazon's decision comes just two months after the company had announced it was laying off 18,000 employees.  

In a memo to employees, CEO Andy Jassy stated that while it was a difficult decision, it was necessary for the long-term success of the company. “… 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,” Jassy wrote in his memo.  

He also mentioned that the impacted teams are not yet finished making final decisions on precisely which roles will be impacted, and the company expects to complete this by mid-to-late April.  

Read more: ‘We will continue to be customer-obsessed’: AWS CEO  

In November 2022, Jassy had first announced a voluntary reduction offer to some in the PXT team and hinted that more layoffs would be expected in 2023. In January, he had announced the elimination of 18,000 roles, primarily in Amazon Stores and PXT.  

Amazon said, it will provide support for employees who are being laid off, including a separation payment, transitional health insurance benefits, and external job placement support. For the layoffs in December and January, the company paid out $640 million in severance packages, according to a Reuters report published on Monday.  

The announcement follows an endless string of layoff news in the technology sector with some of the technology giants including, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft and Twitter, among others announcing massive job cuts in recent months. Even Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) which specialised in dealing with tech companies had to be shut down over solvency issues.  

Since the start of 2023, over 500 tech companies laid off nearly 148,180 workers, according to data compiled by Layoffs.fyi, a website that's been tracking tech layoffs since March 2020.