Amazon to lay off over 18,000 people, CEO says

SAN FRANCISCO - Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said Wednesday evening the company planned to eliminate over 18,000 people, thousands more than originally expected.

Last November, the company said that the layoffs would affect about 10,000 people and that the job cuts would extend into the new year.

In a blog post on Wednesday, Jassy said he "wanted to share the outcome of these further reviews, which is the difficult decision to eliminate additional roles."

The cuts will impact several teams, most of them in Amazon's human resources and stores division, Jassy said.

"These changes will help us pursue our long-term opportunities with a stronger cost structure; however I'm also optimistic that we'll be inventive, resourceful and scrappy in this time when we're not hiring expansively and eliminating some roles," Jassy wrote on his blog post.

"Companies that last a long time go through different phases. They are not in heavy people expansion mode every year," he added.