Amazon is reportedly planning to lay off about 10,000 employees, mostly targeting the devices group, including the one responsible for Alexa voice assistant along with the retail division and human resources.
The cuts, according to the New York Times, would represent about three percent of Amazon’s corporate staff. However, the exact number may vary as businesses within Amazon review their priorities.
Earlier this month, Amazon became the world’s first public company to lose a trillion dollars in market value. The indiscriminate sell-off of Amazon’s stocks has been attributed to the rising inflation, tightening monetary policies and a steep drop in earnings.
Shares of the e-commerce and cloud company fell 4.3 per cent on 9th November, pushing its market value to about $879bn from a record close at $1.88 trillion on July 2021.
The world’s largest online retailer has been facing a sharp slowdown in e-commerce growth as shoppers preferred shopping at brick-and-mortar outlets post pandemic.
Amazon’s shares have fallen by almost 50 per cent amid slowing sales, soaring costs and a jump in interest rates. Since the start of the year, co-founder Jeff Bezos has seen his fortune reduce by about $83 billion to $109 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
To add to the company’s woes, Amazon, last month projected the slowest revenue growth for a holiday quarter in the company’s history as shoppers cut down on their spending fearing economic uncertainty. Which resulted in this absolute market mayhem, wherein its market value nose-dived below $1 trillion for the first time over a period of two years.
Last month, CEO Andy Jassy vowed to streamline operations and the company announced a freeze in hiring.
Amazon has refrained to comment about these impending layoffs, while its shares fell by 2.5 percent in New York.
