Amazon begins layoffs of up to 10,000 jobs, blames “uncertain” economy

Amazon confirms Devices & Services layoffs; warehouse jobs apparently safe.

See full article...

 

[TheManIsANobody]

When does Andy Jassy start publicly demeaning the engineers that were just laid off?

Oh, wait ....

 

[pagh]

I wonder how many of the warehouse workers are considered contractors and temporary personnel, because it's those people that make the business actually work. To me 1.54 million employees not counting warehouse people is excessive.

That 1.54 million number includes almost all the warehouse workers. Amazon does make use of contractors in some roles, but almost all the core work, including the infamous packing and picking jobs in the warehouse, is done by people employed directly by Amazon. Delivery drivers may be the biggest exception.

 

[motytrah]

Is "retail" Whole Foods and Zappos or something else?

 

[Mechjaz]

If this how they respond to an uncertain economy, what the hell are they gonna do in the face of an actual bad one?

I know it's not how businesses work, but when a company with a multibillionaire boss says "we don't have money to keep you" it rings very hollow. One billion dollars is enough to pay 10,000 people $100,000 a year. (More realistically probably 5,000 with benefits and taxes and such. But still.)

 

[stormcrash]

Amazon's problem isn't economic uncertainty in the broad sense, it's their own economics. Their stock has been declining and was stagnant for years before that. It got a boost right after the pandemic started but as soon as we started returning to normal this year it was right back to that same plateau. That stock stagnation has drastically increased the demand on their cash to keep their already stingy compensation from declining and employees from fleeing

I'm betting they saw their retail sales either drop or growth dropped back to where it was back then as well leaving them like every other online retailer way over inventoried and overbuilt as consumer spending diversified back into services and soft goods compared to hard goods and home entertainment

 

[aapis]

I’ve been seeing a lot of “there are too many employees at company X” posts lately, posed as if it were a problem. It always amazes me how anti-labour the right/“fiscal conservative” crowd is. Who do you think makes Amazon, Amazon?

 

[stormcrash]

Is "retail" Whole Foods and Zappos or something else?

Retail refers to the combined operations of the Amazon.com marketplace as well as other subsidiary reatil websites. Not completely sure if Whole Foods/physical efforts fall under there as well but they likely do. The Retail moniker is to differentiate from things like AWS infrastructure, Kindle, and Services like Music/Video

 

[terrydactyl]

In the early 1930s, in the depths of the depression Corning Glass did all they could to keep their workers employed. Even taking on a crazy project to cast a 200 inch mirror. But today most major corporations see workers as just a commodity.

 

[lewax00]

I didn't realize it was anti-labor to assess whether you were overstaffed.

If you're paying 10 people $100k a year to do a job and 3-4 of them suck at it, why wouldn't you cut those bottom 3 and 4 and either hire new people to replace them or just do it with the people you have?

Which of these people are actually "assessing" it? Most of them amount to "I think this number is too high" with no actual reason to support that.

 

[stormcrash]

I didn't realize it was anti-labor to assess whether you were overstaffed.

If you're paying 10 people $100k a year to do a job and 3-4 of them suck at it, why wouldn't you cut those bottom 3 and 4 and either hire new people to replace them or just do it with the people you have?

Cool story bro, except almost nobody at these companies "suck at it". Those people are already taken care of if they do get in there, Amazon in particular is ruthless about "managing out" those people alongside even good performers that just get sacrificed to the stack rank. The people getting laid off are good worker that are being sacrificed to protect the bottom line in the face of misread future sales growth and a stagnant stock valuation that was happening even before inflation and the stock slide this year

 

[Deleted member 853890]

Amazon isn't the only tech giant cutting thousands of jobs. Meta last week announced layoffs of 11,000 employees, about 13 percent of the workforce at the company formerly known as Facebook. At Twitter, Elon Musk eliminated half of Twitter's employees shortly after buying the company.

Without defending Amazon or Meta, you really can't compare what they're doing to Musk firing the majority of Twitter's employees out of a mixture of spite and a total lack of understanding.

 

[CatsRidingRoombas]

This is Amazon's way of trimming the fat, caused by their out of touch CEO, Jassy. A bunch of investors think he's not doing his job very well, according to a recent article.

They're also running a lot of commercials on Pluto TV talking about their free technical education program that gives 750,000 workers the ability to train to become software developers and robotics engineers. Most of the people in the commercials appear to be warehouse employees.

 

[msawzall]

I didn't realize it was anti-labor to assess whether you were overstaffed.

If you're paying 10 people $100k a year to do a job and 3-4 of them suck at it, why wouldn't you cut those bottom 3 and 4 and either hire new people to replace them or just do it with the people you have?

Hire new people to replace them? I have NEVER seen that before. It's always, "We just shit-canned your coworker. Now do their work."

 

[Deleted member 512307]

You can say what you want, but Elon is still a trend setter ... but the trends he starts suck more and more

 

[stormcrash]

In the early 1930s, in the depths of the depression Corning Glass did all they could to keep their workers employed. Even taking on a crazy project to cast a 200 inch mirror. But today most major corporations see workers as just a commodity.

IBM did the same thing back then, they just kept churning out tabulating equipment and other devices knowing that demand would return, and when it did they were ready to immediately fill orders nobody else could

 

[Sarty]

Reading articles like this continues to feel like an alternate dimension. We can't hire fast enough. It's as if the "uncertain economy" stuff is something FAANG are trying wishcast into existence.

 

[afidel]

Is "retail" Whole Foods and Zappos or something else?

Whole Foods, Zappos and the automated Fresh stores plus a few other projects they've worked on over the last few years. The HR cuts are most likely recruiters, they added like 800k employees in the last few years, if they're looking to cut folks then I'm sure they've got armies of recruiters that are part of this wave of layoffs. The devices group is the biggest question mark for me, what group there is losing headcount and why?

 

[atomic.banjo]

I didn't realize it was anti-labor to assess whether you were overstaffed.

If you're paying 10 people $100k a year to do a job and 3-4 of them suck at it, why wouldn't you cut those bottom 3 and 4 and either hire new people to replace them or just do it with the people you have?

First, this is pretty clearly "dump people to save money" and not replacing bad employees with good ones. Second, I guarantee the work volume will not decrease, so the remaining folks have to take up the slack. It's possible but unlikely that there are 10,000 people just sitting around idle at Amazon.

 

[LesMilpool____]

I talked to a former coworker yesterday who still works at Amazon - impact overall seems to be fairly minimal.

Which is more than I can say about what happened at Twitter

 

[glowend]

If this how they respond to an uncertain economy, what the hell are they gonna do in the face of an actual bad one?

I know it's not how businesses work, but when a company with a multibillionaire boss says "we don't have money to keep you" it rings very hollow. One billion dollars is enough to pay 10,000 people $100,000 a year. (More realistically probably 5,000 with benefits and taxes and such. But still.)

Sadly, this has been how shareholder capitalism has worked for a while. The ultimate goal is to increase share price and one easy way to that is is with layoffs. The goal is what is good for the shareholders, not workers. With some companies like Amazon and Meta, the largest shareholders are often the founders so the interests align even more.

I am not endorsing this view, but it does seem to be the dominant one among publicly traded companies.

 

[Deleted member 853890]

Whole Foods, Zappos and the automated Fresh stores plus a few other projects they've worked on over the last few years. The HR cuts are most likely recruiters, they added like 800k employees in the last few years, if they're looking to cut folks then I'm sure they've got armies of recruiters that are part of this wave of layoffs. The devices group is the biggest question mark for me, what group there is losing headcount and why?

I'm not sure on the why, but apparently at least some of the device layoffs are in the Luna and Alexa groups.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/15/ama...-in-alexa-unit-and-cloud-gaming-division.html

 

[AmanoJyaku]

I’ve been seeing a lot of “there are too many employees at company X” posts lately, posed as if it were a problem. It always amazes me how anti-labour the right/“fiscal conservative” crowd is. Who do you think makes Amazon, Amazon?

I know, right? It's like people think businesses are running charities by hiring people they don't need. Those employees are there because the companies need them to fulfill product and service needs. And in some cases, like Meta's, there are employees working on investments that may or may not pan out.

But Amazon and Twitter didn't make investments in new business ventures, they were growing their existing business. Twitter's cuts are ridiculous, but Amazon's make a bit of sense given its size. 10K is a lot of people, but not a significant percentage out of 1.54M.

 

[Ivanp91v]

If this how they respond to an uncertain economy, what the hell are they gonna do in the face of an actual bad one?

I know it's not how businesses work, but when a company with a multibillionaire boss says "we don't have money to keep you" it rings very hollow. One billion dollars is enough to pay 10,000 people $100,000 a year. (More realistically probably 5,000 with benefits and taxes and such. But still.)

[removed]

 

[Mechjaz]

I think amazon rakes it in too and their profit margins on AWS are obscene but you know that's now how it works in real life right?

Also, how old are you....did you experience 2008 at all? 2000-2001?

I did say as much about knowing that's not how businesses work. My point was that it strikes me as dishonest when the decision to layoff is not a decision to save the company, or "make sure we don't get to a point where it's all we can do to save the company." It's "some very rich people won't become richer enough, fast enough, with you here."

Yes, I experienced both. Panicked layoffs instill fear up and down the economy. If Amazon is really hurting so badly (they aren't) that they can't retain these people, people notice and react.

 

[Deleted member 853890]

Sadly, this has been how shareholder capitalism has worked for a while. The ultimate goal is to increase share price and one easy way to that is is with layoffs. The goal is what is good for the shareholders, not workers. With some companies like Amazon and Meta, the largest shareholders are often the founders so the interests align even more.

I am not endorsing this view, but it does seem to be the dominant one among publicly traded companies.

I don't know how we fix it, but Wall Street not only expecting but demanding neverending growth is a massive problem.

 

[Rainywolf]

Amazon isn't the only tech giant cutting thousands of jobs. Meta last week announced layoffs of 11,000 employees, about 13 percent of the workforce at the company formerly known as Facebook. At Twitter, Elon Musk eliminated half of Twitter's employees shortly after buying the company.

Without defending Amazon or Meta, you really can't compare what they're doing to Musk firing the majority of Twitter's employees out of a mixture of spite and a total lack of understanding.

Yeah Musk's Twitter layoffs are happening for a very different reason. Even if we were in the middle of the .com boom Musk would still be laying off people at Twitter.

 

[frostdillicus]

How to tell Amazon is tightening their belt when you are a software engineer.

Only one person cold emails you about jobs every week instead of the usual seven or eight.

 

[solomonrex]

Business schools are a big proponent of irresponsible growth and dehumanizing practices. And you can teach the reality of economics and productivity while still instilling values and morality and they don’t. They are zealots of a destructive religion that is destroying our society.

 

[benInMa]

Reading articles like this continues to feel like an alternate dimension. We can't hire fast enough. It's as if the "uncertain economy" stuff is something FAANG are trying wishcast into existence.

It's their exposure to advertising & consumer spending. Netflix is completely B2C. Facebook is basically B2C/Advertising. Google is basically all advertising, though they do have B2B products. Amazon is seemingly diverse but they have a massive B2C retail component. Apple is diversified but still has a lot of B2C and some advertising. (It'd be interesting to know what's the mix of B2B/B2C on Apple's hardware)

Advertising and B2C are the first things to get hit as they are there's the least barrier to cutting spending. If you sell expensive B2B/Enterprise products that require multi-year investments from your customers they don't just turn everything off in an instant.

 

[randomcat]

 

[AmanoJyaku]

Business schools are a big proponent of irresponsible growth and dehumanizing practices. And you can teach the reality of economics and productivity while still instilling values and morality and they don’t. They are zealots of a destructive religion that is destroying our society.

Business schools encourage those practices, but the people who become CEOs don't need the encouragement. They're sick fucks who'll pass those ethics classes with straight A's, then run a plantation of slaves. Sure, there are exceptions...

 

[dwrd]

Business schools encourage those practices, but the people who become CEOs don't need the encouragement. They're sick fucks who'll pass those ethics classes with straight A's, then run a plantation of slaves. Sure, there are exceptions...

By and large, those "exceptions" are exceptional only in the quality of the PR they have. You can give your whole company to charity and get all the press, but it inevitably turns out that "charity" exists solely to promulgate the former CEO's interests.

 

[aapis]

I didn't realize it was anti-labor to assess whether you were overstaffed.

If you're paying 10 people $100k a year to do a job and 3-4 of them suck at it, why wouldn't you cut those bottom 3 and 4 and either hire new people to replace them or just do it with the people you have?

Hey look, another one! Neat.

 

[Ushio]

If this how they respond to an uncertain economy, what the hell are they gonna do in the face of an actual bad one?

I know it's not how businesses work, but when a company with a multibillionaire boss says "we don't have money to keep you" it rings very hollow. One billion dollars is enough to pay 10,000 people $100,000 a year. (More realistically probably 5,000 with benefits and taxes and such. But still.)

They don't have a billionaire boss anymore Bezos left the CEO position early last year.

As to the economy it is a bad one it's just getting started next year is going to be brutal.

 

[pug fugly]

As someone who has been actively hiring in the Software Engineering field for a small company the past year and a half, it has been one hell of a ride. Last year's feeding frenzy is now being followed up by a purge. Positions I was offering last year would get 3, may 5 applicants. Now I'm back into the 40s and 50s.

The frenzy is starting to look like the whole pandemic toilet paper thing. "Everyone else is hiring tech professionals like mad. We better too!"