Amazon (AMZN) cuts 18,000 jobs, exceeds projections

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) CEO Andy Jassy published an open letter late Wednesday, presenting results of the company's "annual planning process for 2023."

In what he called a "difficult decision to eliminate additional roles", the e-commerce giant announced plans to cut 18,000 jobs, primarily across "Amazon Stores and PXT organizations." The CEO cited "the uncertain economy and that we’ve hired rapidly over the last several years" as key reasons behind the upcoming layoffs,

The company will begin notifying impacted employees starting on January 18th.

While rumors of possible AMZN layoffs have circulated for months - NYT reported on planned 10,000 cut in late November, while WSJ put out a 17,000 figure just earlier today - the actual number of jobs eliminated has exceeded expectations.

Amazon's layoffs, the biggest in its history, add the company to the long and growing list of tech firms of all sizes seeking to get a tighter grip on costs in the period of economic uncertainty - just today, Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) announced intent to cut 10% of its workforce, also blaming overly aggressive hiring during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Shares of AMZN gained 1.7% in after-hours trading following CEO comments.

By Vlad Schepkov

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