Amazon to shed hundreds of corporate employees in "rare" job cuts move: report

The move is surprising given Amazon's rapid growth and push to build a second headquarters

Published February 12, 2018 5:50PM (EST)

FILE - In this June 18, 2014 file photo, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos introduces the new Amazon Fire Phone in Seattle. The eight individuals who own as much as half of the rest of the planet are all men, and have largely made their fortunes in technology. The founder and CEO of Amazon.com helped revolutionize the retail industry by popularizing online shopping. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File) (AP)
FILE - In this June 18, 2014 file photo, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos introduces the new Amazon Fire Phone in Seattle. The eight individuals who own as much as half of the rest of the planet are all men, and have largely made their fortunes in technology. The founder and CEO of Amazon.com helped revolutionize the retail industry by popularizing online shopping. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File) (AP)

Despite recent years of substantial growth for the company, Amazon is reportedly shedding hundreds of corporate employees — though it has promised to hire aggressively in other areas.

The move will mainly impact several hundred corporate employees at Amazon's Seattle headquarters, but cuts will also reach hundreds "elsewhere in Amazon’s global operations," the Seattle Times reported, citing multiple sources familiar with the matter.

Amazon still had 566,000 employees worldwide, as of last December, an astonishing 66 percent increase from last year. Seattle itself is home to 40,000 of those employees. As of Monday, the company still had 12,500 job openings and is currently in the process of finding a city for its second headquarters. Afterwards, Amazon plans to hire 50,000 more workers, the Times reported.

But the move is still being seen as unusual, especially for the second-largest corporate business in the United States.

The Times elaborated:

According to several employees, the rapid growth of the last two years left some units over budget and some teams with too much staff for their work. Amazon had implemented hiring freezes in recent months across several groups, a move that reduced the company’s open job listings in Seattle to their lowest level in years.

[...]

Some employees have already been informed of the elimination of their roles, and layoffs are expected to be completed in the next few weeks, one of the people said.

Recent layoffs at Amazon units outside Seattle suggest the company is consolidating established retail businesses.

In a statement, Amazon defended itself and said it was making "headcount adjustments in other countries," but still planned for "aggressive hiring" in other areas, the Times noted.

The statement added, "For affected employees, we work to find roles in the areas where we are hiring."

There has also been fear among some Seattle employees, who were informed "that [Amazon CEO Jeff] Bezos and the Amazon brass wanted to put more pressure on managers to weed out lower performers and enforce spending discipline after the rapid growth of recent years," the Times reported, citing one managerial source.

"People are in terrible shape," the source said. "There is so much stress on campus."

One former employee said he's seen people "managed out" in the same way, as improvement plans could "trim the size of teams without resorting to layoffs," the Times reported.

Recently, President Donald Trump has bragged about (the few) American companies that have issued $1,000 bonuses to employees, supposedly as a result of the new GOP tax plan. Yet many of those companies, such as Walmart, have also laid off hundreds if not thousands of employees as well. It is unclear if Amazon's decisions are connected to the tax plan, but they certainly speak to mixed economic news, as opposed to the president's sunny economic pronouncements.

 


By Charlie May

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Amazon Amazon Headquarters Gop Tax Plan Jeff Bezos Layoffs