We blew too much money hiring like crazy so we gave you the boot – Amazon

Amazon on Wednesday emailed staff to explain what's said to be the largest layoff in the mega-corp's history. Two weeks ago, CEO Andy Jassy published a blog post declaring his internet empire's intention to eliminate more than 18,000 jobs, including cuts disclosed in November. He didn't cite a specific reason beyond mentioning …

[First Light]

Happy New Year! You're fired!

Looks like the Water Rabbit year is starting out inauspiciously for some of our Chinese friends.

"While it will be painful to say goodbye to many of our talented colleagues . . .”

Ugh, stop lying. It won’t be painful when you get a bonus for being “courageous” enough to fire people

[fairwinds]

Re: Happy New Year! You're fired!

Ugh, stop lying. It won’t be painful when you get a bonus for being “courageous” enough to fire people

This!

I am sure I'm not the only one to be sick to the back teeth of mea culpa CEOs telling us all how they take "full responsibility" blah blah blah, whereas in fact, they don't. If they took responsibility for their actions, they'd give up their bonus, take a pay cut, or even quit! "I take full responsibility for my idiocy, and am going to resign as CEO, drop out of the tech sector entirely, and become a Trappist Monk where I can do no further damage."

Instead, it's all this leadership training gumph, before nipping off to the bank to cash the bonus.

[First Light]

Re: Happy New Year! You're fired!

Trappist monks? We don't want them ruining the beer like they ruined their companies!

[rnturn]

Re: Happy New Year! You're fired!

"... and become a Trappist Monk where I can do no further damage."

I wouldn't be so sure about that.

[doublelayer]

Unemployment information not a surprise

These job cuts haven't yet led to a surge in US unemployment insurance claims. According to the Department of Labor, for the week ending January 14, preliminary figures indicate there were 190,000 claims for unemployment insurance, a decrease of 15,000 from the previous week's unrevised level of 205,000.

This isn't surprising; the job losses that were announced this week haven't taken effect yet. They wouldn't be reflected in these numbers until the people concerned have finished their notice period and are no longer employed, and that's definitely a few weeks away if not spread out over several weeks. The people who lost their jobs this week won't be reflected in this data until some time in February or March. The filings from Amazon indicate March 3 for at least some of them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon

Hire in November for Black Friday and Christmas

Fire in January

Why don't they just hire seasonal workers for say 3 months then they won't get all this bad publicity?

Lots of other companies do just this and don't get the negative press that Amazon does.

I can safely say that it has been more than 9 months since I ordered anything from this bunch of shysters. Much of the time, they are not the cheapest...

[Captain Scarlet]

Re: Amazon

They are convenient and thats it (Although most people I speak to complain when they find out an item they thought was from Amazon is sent from China ending up as a bead or something). I only use them to use up any vouchers I get (Which always come with glitter on the sodding cardboard so can't be recycled).

[Potemkine!]

If a jug fall on a stone, woe to the jug; if a stone fall on a jug, woe to the jug

PR BS decrypted:

"workers [...]will be let go": they will be fired.

"hiring done "during COVID" no longer fits Amazon's cost structure and describes the role eliminations as a necessary step to keep prices low.": Our shareholders want more dividends, and the higher management wants bonuses. And no, there will be no lower salaries for them. Are you kidding?

"it is an important part of a wider effort to lower our cost to serve so we can continue investing in the wide selection, low prices, and fast shipping that our customers love": we made a profit of $2,900,000 this last quarter but our greedy shareholders want more, and you workers are just an adjustment variable. Of course, we strongly expect the survivors to give their best and be loyal to the company, until they are part of the next axing round.

[Dan 55]

Re: If a jug fall on a stone, woe to the jug; if a stone fall on a jug, woe to the jug

"Continue to invest in fast shipping that our customers love" by firing workers thus shipping becomes slower.

Yeah, whatever you say chief. Perhaps they could fire the people they employ to write this nonsense instead, that would be a measurable improvement.

[captain veg]

we made a profit of $2,900,000 this last quarter

Out by a factor of 1,000. The article states 2.9 billion, not million. So, to spell it out, $2,900,000,000.

-A.

[Anonymous Coward]

AWS, Salesforce, Microsoft, despite announcing large layoffs, will still have much bigger workforces than they did in 2021. Many traditional vendors in the industry are far smaller having gone through these exercises repeatedly over the past 10 years.

[nobody who matters]

Bad managers, managing badly. As usual.

[pimppetgaeghsr]

Happening every tech company now. I think the FAANG era is well and truly dead, godfathers of the Google search function were systematically given the boot. I suspect a LOT of that talent is now free to go and help startups starved of talent due to the big tech hegemony. They are much more costs focused now that their headline growth is likely to be in the single digits.