Up to 18,000 Amazon workers in firing line as it chops cost

Amazon is set to make around 18,000 job cuts, with tech teams among those bearing the brunt of the losses. The move followed CRM giant Salesforce's decision to slash about 10 percent of its 73,000 workforce while taking a financial hit of $1.4 billion to $2.1 billion, announced yesterday. The global online retailer and cloud …

[Plest]

"job for life" died at the end of the 1980s, Amazon is no different!

Why is this all over the news? It's just a 5% reduction, my sympathy if you're one of those affected but companies make headcount cuts all the time when economies take a downturn. Is Amazon going to continue to grow indefinitely? No. Does Bezos and co have to manage Amazon just like every other company on the planet? Yes.

Try working for companies when they state 25% headcount drop, then watch morale plumment for weeks or months at a time!

[ElRegioLPL]

Re: "job for life" died at the end of the 1980s, Amazon is no different!

I don't really think you can compare Amazon to a 'normal' company when we're talking about percentages given Amazon have/had about 1.5m employees. We are still talking about 75,000 people.

[NoneSuch]

Re: "job for life" died at the end of the 1980s, Amazon is no different!

Amazon Board - Let's not sack the incompetent senior VP who created this mess with inflated / over-optimistic sales projections (and who will go on to cost us hundreds of millions in the future) . Let's lay off the economically challenged people who actually did the work to made Amazon the great company it is today.

Yeah, that makes sense. Not!

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: "job for life" died at the end of the 1980s, Amazon is no different!

I wonder what percentage of unionised workers will be looking for a new job?

I especially wonder if Amazon UK might find they no longer need one of the warehouses and can shift the reduced delivery load to others?

[ElRegioLPL]

Re: "job for life" died at the end of the 1980s, Amazon is no different!

Look at the timeline of Bezos stepping down and handing over to Jassy and it will make a bit more sense

[deadlockvictim]

Re: "job for life" died at the end of the 1980s, Amazon is no different!

Ronald Reagan, this is your legacy.

This is what you have left America: all-powerful corporations & their executives and workers who can be disposed of at a whim.

You really were the antithesis to FDR.

[Robert Grant]

Re: "job for life" died at the end of the 1980s, Amazon is no different!

If only there'd been some other presidents since Reagan left office.

[Anonymous Coward]

"job for life" died at the end of the 1980s,

I left school aged 16 in 1982, already knowing there was no such thing as a job for life.

If I hear anyone younger complain it all changed later, I suspect them of hidden dimness.

(This is UK based, FTOAD)

[Tom 7]

Re: "job for life" died at the end of the 1980s,

Yup, We're now in a world where no-one, absolutely no-one knows more than their small broom cupboard in the company and wondering why things are going to hell in a handcart while those who cause this flit from company to company causing the same damage and yet getting paid handsomely for doing ugly.

[Mayday]

Re: "job for life" died at the end of the 1980s,

Indeed. My father had a "tech/industrial" related job for 30+ years and he retired from that job.

After god knows how many full time gigs, contracts, layoffs, restucturings etc I have to admit I'm rather jealous.

[heyrick]

How does smart speaker/voice tech manage to rack up losses of three billion? I find that figure incomprehensible.

[Anonymous Coward]

They haven't found the right buyer yet for the intercepts, or criminals and hedge fund managers (but I repeat myself) are smart enough not to buy them?

[John Brown (no body)]

My wife was watching NCIS the other day. The scene was in their forensics lab. There was an Amazon Alexa device there and in use. I know US TV in particular likes the money from product placement, and I have no doubt Amazon paid a pretty penny for that, but it totally killed any pretence at realism for me. I can't imagine a federal investigative agency allowing something like that on their internal networks, let alone somewhere where sensitive conversations are being had.

[David Glasgow]

Are there any tech related aspects of NCIS you would hail as remotely realistic? Remember the enthusiastic praise of their Windows phones? And genetic profiling doesn't really end with electronic honking and "DNA MATCH" Flashing on screen. As for Major Mass.......

[John Brown (no body)]

Well, I've not seen much of it and yes, all those type of shows require suspension of reality, but that one just struck me as even more out of touch with reality than the general run of the mill howlers they all use. I treat the tech side of TV and films as being science fiction since some of it might be possible one day :-)

After all, we laughed at the infamous "Zoom in! Enhance!" to get the car number plate from some crappy CCTV or phone footage. But with camera phones at 4K or higher these days, that's possible in some cases now :-)

[Roj Blake]

They sell the hardware at a loss, with the expectation of making money from the gathered data.

It turns out that people asking Alexa to play the latest Harry Styles isn't very useful to them.

[Michael Wojcik]

It turns out that people asking Alexa to play the latest Harry Styles isn't very useful to them.

Yeah. It's not useful to Amazon either.

(Thanks, you've been a great audience.)

[Dan 55]

"finding a way to do more for customers at a lower cost"

This means "We, a corporation still making billions a year, are going to dump other people's workload on the remaining employees. Suck it up or you'll be in the next round of layoffs for complaining or just working your contracted hours".

[Tom 7]

Re: "finding a way to do more for customers at a lower cost"

But the customers are ultimately being fucked over. The service is getting worse and worse and overnight delivery to a nearby back garden is not good enough. I dont think they are very far from a tipping point they'll have difficulty recovering from. Just a few more cost savings...

[NeilPost]

Re: "finding a way to do more for customers at a lower cost"

I’m looking forward to no more self-aggrandising ad’s about Amazon Drone or Robot Home delivery. That is a pointless money pit.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: "finding a way to do more for customers at a lower cost"

I'm not so sure. I think Walmart's done a good job of demonstrating there isn't any floor to retail customer service, as long as people think they're getting the lowest price.

[Gene Cash]

Hopefully most of it is in the search algorithm dept

Those people need to be stamped "keep away from computers" on their foreheads

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: Hopefully most of it is in the search algorithm dept

Can we include the people responsible for Outlook search too?

I realize email search is an unsolved problem, and we totally didn't have a really good solution for it back in the 1980s with mbox format and grep. But still, Outlook is remarkably terrible, and getting worse.

[Doogie Howser MD]

Nice vernacular

"Eliminating" people and also, WTF is "People Experience"? I yearn for the halcyon days of Personnel departments and plain language.

[NeilPost]

Re: Nice vernacular

Personnel Dept - supported employees.

People Team/Experience - farmed employees.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: Nice vernacular

Soylent Green tapas.

[chivo243]

SOP

They will wait until after the holidays to let the 'annual' axe swing commence. They'll be hiring again round Halloween. Nothing new here, except the excuses for letting the people go?

[An_Old_Dog]

Re: SOP

I still see billboards with ads from Amazon reading, "Apply now and get a seasonal job offer with no interview."

[nautica]

The "Many Worlds" conjecture of physics ain't got nothin' on this.

"...It was claimed the vast majority of the losses ["...an operating loss of over $3 billion..."] were tied to Amazon's Alexa and other devices. Amazon responded that it was as committed as ever to Echo and Alexa would "continue to invest heavily in them."

Amazon's appeal to, and use of, George Orwell's doublespeak is completely expected these days, from individuals to mega-corporations; but those who engage in it need to bring a modicum of intelligence to its use. In this particular instance, might this statement not have a profound negative influence on one's inclination to invest in the corporation?

[Andy Non]

Re: The "Many Worlds" conjecture of physics ain't got nothin' on this.

Upvoted for double-plus good post.

[Anonymous Coward]

Come in Alexa, your time is up

For most of us things like Alexa in the home are nothing more than a 'meh' and 'used it once and it failed' or 'hell no, not having that thing spy on me'

But how it can rack up that much of a loss is beyond me.

The only positive thing I have to say about Amazon is that their AWS teams are pretty good when one of their users decided to try to hack my blog. If Baldy Bezos is going to cull them then that is IMHO a bad move. It will only result in me changing the /32 to /16 on my firewall block rules. I've already blocked all of US company Digital Ocean for doing nowt about hacking.

[vtcodger]

OMG -- They're firing Alexa

Amazon responded that it was as committed as ever to Echo and Alexa would "continue to invest heavily in them."

Let me translate that into English for you. Alexa better get her resume up to date 'cause she's got no future at Amazon.

OK with me. People talking to disembodied, imaginary, entities has always seemed a bit creepy to me.

When and where will the going away party be?

[Flywheel]

Re: OMG -- They're firing Alexa

"Alexa .. when's your leaving party?"

[Scott 1]

Alexa Schmalexa

We have one of those Alexa devices with a screen on it (it was a gift). It shows us the current time and upcoming weather, and that's about all it's used for.

[Dan 55]

Re: Alexa Schmalexa

That's all you use it for, what does it use you for?

[Marty McFly]

Amazon Prime seems like no more...

Anyone else noticing that Amazon Prime's vaunted "Two-day delivery" has pretty much disappeared? A lot of "Prime" items are now 10-days to 2-weeks for delivery. And don't blame the shippers either. I've got two items right now (1/5) that were ordered 12/23 and have not shipped yet. That's all warehouse back end, not the delivery side.

Amazon Music, included with Prime...? That has pretty much been flushed down the hole too. Try to play music and all the App does is try to upsell to Amazon Music Unlimited.

Companies rise & fall. Sears & Roebuck once dominated the mail-order world, and look where they are today. I am starting to see the downhill side of Amazon's lifecycle.

[NeilPost]

Re: Amazon Prime seems like no more...

Nope Amazon Prime is still next day to most of the UK, inc fronting Morrison’s Grocery Home Delivery on Prime.

The Delivery unit is far more built out than in the US where Amazon Local Delivery vans are as ubiquitous as Tesco/Asda/Sainsbury’s/Morrison’s Grocery Delivery vans.

[ecofeco]

Never forget

If you are an employee of the company that got bought, you should immediately start looking for a new job. You WILL get cut.

[Lost in Cyberspace]

Redundancies vs natural wastage

I assume the cuts would allow them to get rid of the worst employees, rather than wait for (relatively talented) staff to leave?

[nautica]

From Lost in Cyberspace:

"I assume the cuts would allow them to get rid of the worst employees, rather than wait for (relatively talented) staff to leave?"

A rational application of statistics--whatever distribution (Gaussian; Poisson...) one chooses to use--would dictate that "Worst Employees" are distributed in a fairly consistent (equal) manner across the entire set--population--known as "Employees"; from the top of the organization to the bottom.

It is an unfortunate historical fact that organizations rarely, if ever, use situations such as this to remove "Worst Employees" consistently ('all across the board'), but as an (unfortunate) reason to remove only employees from the lower levels---while it is the "Worst Employees" at the higher/highest levels who are directly responsible for the organization's poor performance.

[Anonymous Coward]

My Law of staff reductions

If there are redundancy payments involved: these go to the favoured/influential staff.

If it is just mass sackings: these are directed at the lowest level staff.

[Potemkine!]

Firing people means also less customers for Amazon. If you don't get a wage, you don't buy stuff (or much less).

By pre-emptively laying off people because of "the uncertain macroeconomic environment" , those companies create a vicious circle making the macroeconomic environment worse and for certain.

[codejunky]

Potemkine!

"Firing people means also less customers for Amazon. If you don't get a wage, you don't buy stuff (or much less)."

Paying your staff in the hopes of them spending on your product isnt a sustainable business. It does not work that way

[JWLong]

Re: Potemkine!

Quote:Paying your staff in the hopes of them spending on your product isn't a sustainable business. It does not work that way.

It worked for Henry Ford back when companies carried about their customers and employees.

[sabroni]

The important thing

is that the shareholders still get a nice dividend.

[codejunky]

Re: The important thing

@sabroni

"is that the shareholders still get a nice dividend."

People do invest for a return.