Amazon axing 18,000 jobs amid 'uncertain economy'

US online retailer Amazon, which grew massively in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, is slashing more than 18,000 jobs.

The company, which benefited from virus-induced changes in shopping habits that saw remote purchases and home deliveries thrive, has told workers it must now cut costs.

"We don't take these decisions lightly or underestimate how much they might affect the lives of those who are impacted," Andy Jassy, the company's president and chief executive officer, said in a memo to Amazon's 1.5 million employees.

Jassy said the company had "hired rapidly over several years "and the "uncertain economy "means it must now scale back.

The job cuts are Amazon's largest-ever round of layoffs and will impact employees in all parts of the world, but Jassy said most will come from the Amazon Fresh brand, which specializes in groceries, and the Amazon Go brand, which includes a chain of physical retail stores. Cuts will also be made in the company's human resources department.

"Companies that last a long time go through different phases. They're not in heavy people expansion mode every year," Jassy added in the widely leaked memo.

The BBC reported that Amazon has suffered recently not only from a dip in online sales attributed to the easing of pandemic restrictions and the return of many people to the high street, but also from a fall in advertising revenue triggered by companies slashing budgets in the face of rising inflation.

Amazon said workers being let go will learn of their fate by Jan 18.

News of the job cuts followed recent reports of a hiring freeze, and claims that the company had suspended construction for some of its distribution hubs and warehouses.

Wider trend

Reuters reported that the Amazon layoffs look to be part of a wider trend of job losses throughout the technology industry that it said is likely to get worse in the coming months.

The trend has seen Facebook's parent company Meta announce plans in November to cut 13 percent of its global workforce of 87,000. And Twitter has also made large job cuts recently, with around half of its workforce having been cut since October.

Sky News reported that the job cuts at Amazon signal the enterprise's loss of faith in the idea of venturing into physical stores and suggested it will likely focus on its core e-commerce business in the future.

The Press Association said it understands most of the job cuts will be made in Europe, where a cost of living crisis and high rate of inflation have led many people to cut back significantly on spending.

Ironically, Amazon had recently doubled the basic pay rate it offers workers, in a bid to compete more aggressively for employees.