Why Amazon will lay off 9,000 more employees

There have been spillover effects in India too, with Indian start-ups facing the wrath of SVB’s shutdown, and workers being laid off en masse.

Why is Amazon laying off workers again?

In a memo to staff, Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy said the second phase of the company’s annual planning process, completed this month, had led to additional job cuts. He said Amazon will still hire in some strategic areas.

In January, Amazon announced it would fire 18,000 workers across the globe, marking its biggest-ever round of layoffs in its history.

This time, the cuts will also impact profitable verticals such as its cloud computing unit AWS and its burgeoning advertising business.

“… given the uncertain economy in which we reside, and the uncertainty that exists in the near future, we have chosen to be more streamlined in our costs and headcount,” Jassy wrote in his memo.

“Some may ask why we didn’t announce these role reductions with the ones we announced a couple of months ago. The short answer is that not all of the teams were done with their analyses in the late fall; and rather than rush through these assessments without the appropriate diligence, we chose to share these decisions as we’ve made them so people had the information as soon as possible,” he added.

Earlier this month, the company said it would pause construction on its headquarters building in northern Virginia, though the first phase of that project will open this June with 8,000 employees.

Tumultuous times for tech companies

The development comes days after Meta said it will cut an additional 10,000 jobs, just four months after it let go 11,000 employees. A deteriorating economy has brought about a series of mass job cuts across corporate America, from Wall Street banks such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to Big Tech firms including Google and Microsoft.

Earlier this month, the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank – which primarily did business with young start-ups – set alarm bells ringing for upcoming businesses and even large ones such as Pinterest and Shopify since they had significant exposure to the bank.

Tremors in India

The layoffs announced by the global majors have impacted thousands of people in India. The Indian Express earlier reported how the fallout of SVB impacted Indian start-ups, which were nearly on the brink over concerns that they might have had to shut shop given the non-availability of cash.

Aside from big tech companies and start-ups, even traditional IT companies which put India on the map have had to adjust to the current economic reality. Last month, Wipro offered fresh recruits a revised salary package of Rs 3.5 lakh per annum (LPA) from its previous offer of Rs 6.5 LPA, amidst the macroeconomic headwinds being faced by the industry at large.