Amazon to slash 16,000 jobs worldwide in a bid to ‘streamline operations’
The company is said to have around 75,000 staff employed in the UK, across more than 100 sties – it is also said to indirectly support around 160,000 more jobs throughout its UK supply chain
Thousands could be sacked(Image: Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Amazon has told staff it plans to cut around 16,000 jobs globally as part of efforts to streamline operations and reduce bureaucracy across the business.
It is the latest major round of lay-offs at the retail technology giant, coming only three months after it axed around 14,000 jobs. It is understood the majority of jobs impacted by the latest cuts will be in the US but the UK operation will see some jobs scrapped.
The company did not disclose how many UK workers will be affected. Beth Galetti, senior vice president of people experience and technology at Amazon, told staff in a blog post: “As I shared in October, we’ve been working to strengthen our organisation by reducing layers, increasing ownership and removing bureaucracy.
“Some of you might ask if this is the beginning of a new rhythm – where we announce broad reductions every few months. That’s not our plan.”
The news comes after we reported how cuts at the world’s biggest online retailer were blamed on artificial intelligence, with less human staff said to be needed across its Amazon Web Services, retail, Prime Video and – ironically – Human Resources departments.
Speaking in October ,CEO Andy Jassy said about previous layoffs: “Really, it’s culture. If you grow as fast as we did for several years … you end up with a lot more people than what you had before, and you end up with a lot more layers.”
And Edward Targett, business expert and The Stack founder said on his Linkedin: “The mood is understood to be pretty morbid internally, unsurprisingly. These have been well-signalled by Amazon.
“I’m fascinated by how layoffs at this kind of scale are done without creating risk at projects where a lot of institutional capability remains in human format.
“Certainly at another Big Tech firm, earlier mass layoffs were algorithmically optimised to avoid accusations of bias over performance, one insider alleged to me last year, and it’s hard not to wind up with big and unforeseen holes in projects when computers and fear of legal risk are driving these decisions…”
The company is said to have around 75,000 staff employed in the UK, across more than 100 sties – it is also said to indirectly support around 160,000 more jobs throughout its UK supply chain.
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