Amazon begins mass lay-offs of 10,000 staff

Sources claim Amazon is planning to lay-off 10,000 employees from both tech and corporate roles. Amazon is joining a number of big tech companies that have announced lay-offs in the past few weeks. These companies include Facebook parent company Meta, who announced over 11,000 employees would be laid off over the coming weeks. Twitter, Salesforce, and Microsoft have all announced major staffing cuts recently. 

Anonymous reports of the plan came to light on Monday and according to tweets from staff members, just hours later the lay-offs have already begun. A number of Amazon employees in the US were reportedly called into meetings with their managers. Many were told they had two months to find another job internally or accept severance payment. The cuts are expected to affect mostly areas such as retail, human resources and devices. Amazon shares have dropped 40% in 2022.

In what some are calling the end of the Silicon Valley boom, tech companies are preparing for the post pandemic economic downturn by shifting the focus from growth towards profit. A shift that takes tech giants away from over 20 years of growth focused business. 

Dan Ives, a financial analyst with Wedbush Securities, told The Washington Post on Monday that the lay-offs may signal an imminent recession. Tech companies, he said, “got significantly bloated, and they’re not built for a softer economy like we’re seeing.”

Globally, employment levels are up. Australia, like many global north countries, is being touted as a ‘jobseekers market’. Australia’s unemployment rate is sitting at 4.0%, the lowest it’s been for decades. In August, the Australian government even released their roadmap to achieve its target of 1.2 million tech-related jobs by 2030.

The reports that Amazon was freezing hiring of corporate roles last month appears to have been in preparation for this announcement, indicating this move has been in the pipeline for some time. 

Amazon is yet to make a public statement speaking to the lay-offs. Instead a different topic has dominated the headlines today. In a move that seems somewhat like a red herring, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has approached CNN to state he plans to give away most of his $124bn fortune during his lifetime.

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