Amazon CEO confirms more layoffs coming in early 2023

San Francisco, Nov 18

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has warned employees that there will be more layoffs at the company in early 2023 "as leaders continue to make adjustments".

The e-commerce giant publicly confirmed some layoffs on Wednesday and now, Jassy has said more layoffs are coming as Amazon's annual planning process extends into the new year.

"Those decisions will be shared with impacted employees and organisations early in 2023," he said in a statement late on Thursday.

"We haven't concluded yet exactly how many other roles will be impacted (we know that there will be reductions in our Stores and PXT organisations), but each leader will communicate to their respective teams when we have the details nailed down," Sassy added.

Amazon will prioritise communicating directly with impacted employees before making broad public or internal announcements.

"This year's review is more difficult due to the fact that the economy remains in a challenging spot and we've hired rapidly the last several years," said Jassy.

The company did not reveal the exact number of employees being hit although earlier reports put the number at 10,000 employees or 3 per cent of its workforce.

The massive job cuts have hit several divisions, especially the Alexa virtual assistant business and the Luna cloud gaming unit.

"We communicated the difficult decision to eliminate a number of positions across our Devices and Books businesses, and also announced a voluntary reduction offer for some employees in our People, Experience, and Technology (PXT) organisation," Jassy further said.

"I've been in this role now for about a year and a half, and without a doubt, this is the most difficult decision we've made during that time," the Amazon CEO added.

Dave Limp, Senior Vice President of Devices and Services, also wrote an internal post, saying that "after a deep set of reviews, we recently decided to consolidate some teams and programmes".

"One of the consequences of these decisions is that some roles will no longer be required," Limp said.