Amazon May Cut Up to 10,000 Jobs This Week

Amazon is the latest tech giant to plan layoffs. The e-commerce behemoth is looking to cut around 10,000 jobs, or roughly 3% of its workforce, in what would be the largest layoffs in the company’s history, the New York Times reported Monday.

The layoffs will primarily affect the division responsible for Alexa voice services, as well as those working in the company’s retail and human resources departments, according to the Times. The cuts could take place as early as this week. 

Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

These latest cuts come on the heels of declining sales. While Amazon’s third quarter earnings saw improvement, overall profits were below expectations. As a result, Amazon has been cutting back on aspects of its business.

In the past few months CEO Andy Jassy halted testing on Amazon Scout, the company’s robot home delivery initiative. He’s also shuttered the Amazon Care tele-health and nursing service, as well as Fabric.com, a long-time online fabric retailer. The cuts, along with high attrition, reduced the headcount at the company by approximately 80,000 between April and September, according to the Times. Amazon issued a hiring freeze for small teams in September, followed by a corporate-wide freeze earlier this month. 

Amazon’s imminent layoffs are part of the turbulence facing the tech industry. Twitter, Microsoft, Meta and Google are just some of the tech companies that have let go of workers in recent months.