Amazon cuts nearly 1,000 jobs, mainly in retail
What's the story
Amazon has confirmed a fresh round of job cuts, mainly in its Stores unit that runs the main e-commerce website. As per reports, fewer than 1,000 white-collar workers are affected. The layoffs come during one of the company's biggest sales events, Prime Big Deal Days. This is part of a series of small cuts after a major reduction where 30,000 jobs were cut last year and continued into January this year.
Company statement
Layoffs affected employees from US, India, and UK
Amazon's spokesperson said, "We've adjusted parts of our Stores business because we believe this structure will better enable us to deliver on our priorities."
The internal Slack channel indicated several divisions within Stores were impacted by these layoffs. These include customer service and selling partner services, among others.
Employees from the US, India, and the UK were among those affected by this decision.
Pandemic impact
Bezos says Amazon overhired during the pandemic
Amazon's founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos, in a recent Fox News interview, said the company had to keep cutting jobs because it overhired during the pandemic.
He said, "People were staying home and they were ordering, and it was an incredible, stressful period for us."
Bezos added that "the whole team worked extremely hard and did so much," but they really grew their headcount during this time.