APRIL 3, 2024 — WHAT AMAZON’S DILIP KUMAR DID NOT SAY

Amazon is phasing out its checkout-less grocery stores with “Just Walk Out” technology, first reported by The Information Tuesday. The company’s senior vice president of grocery stores says they’re moving away from Just Walk Out, which relied on cameras and sensors to track what people were leaving the store with.
Just over half of Amazon Fresh stores are equipped with Just Walk Out. The technology allows customers to skip checkout altogether by scanning a QR code when they enter the store. Though it seemed completely automated, Just Walk Out relied on more than 1,000 people in India watching and labeling videos to ensure accurate checkouts. The cashiers were simply moved off-site, and they watched you as you shopped.
On Wednesday, GeekWire reported that Amazon Web Services is cutting a few hundred jobs in its Physical Stores Technology team, according to internal emails. The layoffs will allegedly impact portions of Amazon’s identity and checkout teams.
Instead of Just Walk Out, Amazon is moving towards Dash Carts, a scanner and screen that’s embedded in your shopping cart, allowing you to checkout as you shop. These offer a more reliable solution than Just Walk Out. Amazon Fresh stores will also feature self check out counters from now on, for people who aren’t Amazon members.

APRIL 3, 2024 — HUNDREDS IN AWS TO BE LAID OFF

The company has announced that it will be cutting “several hundred” employees at its Amazon Web Services division, including those in Sales, Marketing, and Global Services organization, and a few hundred jobs in its Physical Stores Technology team.

In the Sales, Marketing, and Global Services organization, the company is shifting to self-serve digital training and training programs run by external partners—with most of the cuts being in training and certification and sales operations.

According to Matt Garman, AWS senior vice president, “We operate in an incredibly fast-moving industry, and it is important that we stay agile as an organization. The changes we are making are preparing the organization for the future, aligning with our strategy and priorities, and reducing duplication and inefficiency. I recognize the effect this has on every individual impacted.”

As for the Physical Stores Technology team, Dilip Kumar, vice president of AWS applications, noted, “We’ve learned a lot through the launch of identity and checkout technologies in our large-format Amazon Fresh stores and have good customer feedback to inform our plans going forward. We are also expanding our identity and checkout technologies in smaller-format 1P [first-party] stores and growing our third-party locations.”

As expected, a company spokesperson spouted to ritualistic corporatese bafflegab, “AWS has identified a few targeted areas of the organization we need to streamline in order to continue focusing our efforts on the key strategic areas that we believe will deliver maximum impact and is committed to supporting the employees throughout their transition to new roles in and outside of Amazon. Noting that the decisions are difficult but necessary as we continue to invest, hire, and optimize resources to deliver innovation for our customers.”

FEBRUARY 6, 2024 — HUNDREDS OF JOBS IN HEALTH CARE DIVISION

According to the company, job cuts will impact “a few hundred roles” between the One Medical chain of doctors offices Amazon acquired last year and the company’s online pharmacy operations.

“As we continue our mission to make health care simpler for customers, we’re realigning some resources to help accelerate our efforts to deliver the best experience for our patients, customers, and members. Unfortunately, these adjustments will result in the elimination of a few hundred roles within Amazon Pharmacy and One Medical.”

JANUARY 10, 2024 — HUNDREDS TARGETED AT PRIME VIDEO AND MGM STUDIOS VISION

Memo from Mike Hopkins, Senior Vice President at Prime Video & Amazon MGM Studios…

“Throughout the past year, we’ve looked at nearly every aspect of our business with an eye towards improving our ability to deliver even more breakthrough movies, TV shows, and live sports in a personalized, easy-to-use entertainment experience for our global customers. As a result, we’ve identified opportunities to reduce or discontinue investments in certain areas while increasing our investment and focus on content and product initiatives that deliver the most impact. As a result of these decisions, we will be eliminating several hundred roles across the Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios organization.”
JANUARY 9, 2024 — 500 TWITCH EMPLOYEES TARGETED

It is being reported that Twitch is poised to cut 35% of its workforce or about 500 workers.

Amazon is apparently concerned that the costs of running Twitch’s website, which supports approximately 1.8 billion hours of live video content a month, are becoming burdensome with the the business remaining unprofitable.

APRIL 6, 2023 — 100 LAYOFFS IN GAMING DIVISION

According to Christoph Hartmann, vice president of Amazon Games…

I want to take a moment to make you aware of some changes happening today across the Games business and outline our path forward.

It is my firm belief that we have a unique opportunity to become one of the leading publishers of high-quality gaming content that delights players for years -- whether that’s creating our own games internally, publishing titles from talented developers like Bandai Namco and Crystal Dynamics, providing entertaining shows on Crown Channel, or offering great content via Prime Gaming. Delivering the best content for players is at the center of what we do, and today’s changes are aimed at focusing our teams toward that commitment.
After evaluating our current projects against our long-term goals, the Games leadership team made the difficult decision to eliminate just over 100 roles across Prime Gaming, Game Growth and in our San Diego studio, while also reassigning some employees to other projects that match our strategic focus. Each employee whose role has been eliminated should now have a live meeting scheduled this morning so we can discuss these changes directly and give each employee an opportunity to ask questions. There is never a pleasant way to share this sort of news, but we are committed to treating our impacted employees with empathy and respect, and will support them by offering them severance pay, health insurance benefits, outplacement services, and paid time to conduct their job search.
Going forward, our resources will be aligned to support our focus on content. We will continue to invest in our internal development efforts, and our teams will continue to grow as our projects progress: And finally, we are optimizing our retail and backend focused teams to ensure Amazon Games and Prime Gaming deliver strong value and rich experiences for our customers, and are adjusting the team sizes accordingly.
I recognize that the impact of these decisions is not just to the business, but to our teammates and friends. It never feels good to say goodbye to colleagues, and I thank you for supporting them as they work through this change. We respect this is a difficult time and that you may have questions or concerns.
I am confident in the direction we are headed. Amazon Games has gained momentum over the past couple of years thanks to your hard work, dedication and commitment to players. We’ve launched two games and have seven more projects announced, with even more in the pipeline, in addition to the new Crown shows and Prime Gaming content we have lined up. Thank you to each and every one of you for showing up every day to make that happen. If you have questions or need to connect, please reach out to me or your team leads.

MARCH 20, 2023 — WORSE THAN THOUGHT WITH ANOTHER 9,000 LAYOFFS

Update from CEO Andy Jassy on Amazon’s operating plan and additional role eliminations…

As we’ve just concluded the second phase of our operating plan (“OP2”) this past week, I’m writing to share that we intend to eliminate about 9,000 more positions in the next few weeks—mostly in AWS, PXT, Advertising, and Twitch. This was a difficult decision, but one that we think is best for the company long term.
Let me share some additional context.
As part of our annual planning process, leaders across the company work with their teams to decide what investments they want to make for the future, prioritizing what matters most to customers and the long-term health of our businesses. For several years leading up to this one, most of our businesses added a significant amount of headcount. This made sense given what was happening in our businesses and the economy as a whole. However, given the uncertain economy in which we reside, and the uncertainty that exists in the near future, we have chosen to be more streamlined in our costs and headcount. The overriding tenet of our annual planning this year was to be leaner while doing so in a way that enables us to still invest robustly in the key long-term customer experiences that we believe can meaningfully improve customers’ lives and Amazon as a whole.
As our internal businesses evaluated what customers most care about, they made re-prioritization decisions that sometimes led to role reductions, sometimes led to moving people from one initiative to another, and sometimes led to new openings where we don’t have the right skills match from our existing team members. This initially led us to eliminate 18,000 positions (which we shared in January); and, as we completed the second phase of our planning this month, it led us to these additional 9,000 role reductions (though you will see limited hiring in some of our businesses in strategic areas where we’ve prioritized allocating more resources).
Some may ask why we didn’t announce these role reductions with the ones we announced a couple months ago. The short answer is that not all of the teams were done with their analyses in the late fall; and rather than rush through these assessments without the appropriate diligence, we chose to share these decisions as we’ve made them so people had the information as soon as possible. The same is true for this note as the impacted teams are not yet finished making final decisions on precisely which roles will be impacted. Once those decisions have been made (our goal is to have this complete by mid to late April), we will communicate with the impacted employees (or where applicable in Europe, with employee representative bodies). We will, of course, support those we have to let go, and will provide packages that include a separation payment, transitional health insurance benefits, and external job placement support.
If I go back to our tenet—being leaner while doing so in a way that enables us to still invest robustly in the key long-term customer experiences that we believe can meaningfully improve customers’ lives and Amazon as a whole—I believe the result of this year’s planning cycle is a plan that accomplishes this objective. I remain very optimistic about the future and the myriad of opportunities we have, both in our largest businesses, Stores and AWS, and our newer customer experiences and businesses in which we’re investing.
To those ultimately impacted by these reductions, I want to thank you for the work you have done on behalf of customers and the company. It’s never easy to say goodbye to our teammates, and you will be missed. To those who will continue with us, I look forward to partnering with you as we make life easier for customers every day and relentlessly inventing to do so.
Andy

FEBRUARY 12, 2023 — 300 ZAPPOS EMPLOYEES TARGETED

As part of Amazon’s planned reduction in force of 18,000 employees, Amazon laid off 300 employees, including customer service representatives, at its Zappos shoes and accessories subsidiary.

JANUARY 30, 2023 — SORTING CENTER IN SHAKOPEE, MINNESOTA, CLOSING WITH 700 LAYOFFS

Amazon announces the closing of its Amazon Sort Center in Shakopee, Minnesota, an older facility whose lease is expiring and will not be renewed.

According to a company spokesperson, "We’re always evaluating our network to make sure it fits our business needs and to improve the experience for our employees, customers, partners, and drivers. As part of that effort, we may close older sites, enhance existing facilities, or open new sites, and we weigh a variety of factors when deciding where to develop future sites or maintain a presence.”

JANUARY 23, 2023 — LEAVING SEATTLE, WASHINGTON BUILDING

Amazon will move workers out of its offices in Port 99 on Eighth Avenue when the lease expires in April, a company spokesperson said Thursday. Amazon will move about 2,000 employees into office spaces across its Puget Sound headquarters.

The news comes amid a wave of layoffs at the tech and e-commerce giant that will affect 18,000 workers companywide and 2,300 around Puget Sound.

JANUARY 6, 2023 — THE DREADED MEMO — 18,000 EMPLOYEES TARGETED

CEO Andy Jassy on role eliminations…

As I shared back in November, as part of our annual planning process for 2023, leaders across the company have been working with their teams and looking at their workforce levels, investments they want to make in the future, and prioritizing what matters most to customers and the long-term health of our businesses.
This year’s review has been more difficult given the uncertain economy and that we’ve hired rapidly over the last several years. In November, we communicated the hard 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) organization. I also shared that we weren’t done with our annual planning process and that I expected there would be more role reductions in early 2023.
Today, I wanted to share the outcome of these further reviews, which is the difficult decision to eliminate additional roles. Between the reductions we made in November and the ones we’re sharing today, we plan to eliminate just over 18,000 roles. Several teams are impacted; however, the majority of role eliminations are in our Amazon Stores and PXT organizations.
S-team and I are deeply aware that these role eliminations are difficult for people, and we don’t take these decisions lightly or underestimate how much they might affect the lives of those who are impacted. We are working to support those who are affected and are providing packages that include a separation payment, transitional health insurance benefits, and external job placement support.
We typically wait to communicate about these outcomes until we can speak with the people who are directly impacted. However, because one of our teammates leaked this information externally, we decided it was better to share this news earlier so you can hear the details directly from me. We intend on communicating with impacted employees (or where applicable in Europe, with employee representative bodies) starting on January 18.
Amazon has weathered uncertain and difficult economies in the past, and we will continue to do so. These changes will help us pursue our long-term opportunities with a stronger cost structure; however, I’m also optimistic that we’ll be inventive, resourceful, and scrappy in this time when we’re not hiring expansively and eliminating some roles. Companies that last a long time go through different phases. They’re not in heavy people expansion mode every year. We often talk about our leadership principle Invent and Simplify in the context of creating new products and features. There will continue to be plenty of this across all of the businesses we’re pursuing. But, we sometimes overlook the importance of the critical invention, problem-solving, and simplification that go into figuring out what matters most to customers (and the business), adjusting where we spend our resources and time, and finding a way to do more for customers at a lower cost (passing on savings to customers in the process). Both of these types of Invent and Simplify really matter.
To those impacted by these reductions, I want you to know how grateful I am for your contributions to Amazon, and the work you have done on behalf of customers. You have made a meaningful difference in a lot of customers’ lives. To those who will continue on the journey with us, I look forward to partnering with you to keep making life better and easier for customers every day and relentlessly inventing to do so.
Andy

DECEMBER 5, 2022 — AMAZON HINTS AT 18,000+ LAYOFFS (APPROXIMATELY 1.3 PERCENT OF GLOBAL WORKFORCE)

It appears that the company has requested that managers identify employees, from all Grades 1 to 7, who are underperformers or who are non-essential.

According to unofficial sources…

"There is no specific department or location mentioned for the cuts; it is across the business. We were told this is as a result of over-hiring during the pandemic and the need for cost-cutting as the company's financials have been on a declining trend."

"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."

"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 organizations), but each leader will communicate to their respective teams when we have the details nailed down. And, as has been the case this week, we will prioritize communicating directly with impacted employees before making broad public or internal announcements.”

"We are working to support those who are affected and trying to help them find new roles on teams that have a need; and in cases where that's not possible, we are offering packages that include a separation payment, transitional health insurance benefits, and external job placement support.”

NOVEMBER 1, 2022 — LAYOFFS AT AMP

Amazon’s attempt to re-imagine radio with its AMP app has encountered headwinds and layoffs as the company embarks on a cost-cutting initiative.

The personnel realignment appears to impact 50% of the division or about 150 employees.

According to a company spokesperson, “At Amazon we think big, experiment, and invest in new ideas to delight customers. We also continually evaluate the progress and potential of our products and services to deliver customer value, and we regularly make adjustments based on those assessments. Following a recent review, we’ve made the decision to consolidate a few teams so we can focus on the growth and scaling of Amp.”

SEPTEMBER 12, 2022 — CLOSING 2 FACILITIES WITH 300 LAYOFFS IN BALTIMORE, MARYLAND. MAJOR COST-CUTTING AHEAD.

Amazon has announced it is closing two delivery facilities in Baltimore, Maryland which will impact a total of over 300 employees.

The company has also announced plans to cancel plans to establish 42 facilities in the United States and postponed plans to open another 21.

SEPTEMBER 9, 2022 — AMAZON CARE SHUTDOWN by end of 2022

Amazon has announced that it will be closing its telehealth service, known as Amazon Care, by December 31, 2022.

The closure will impact 159 Amazon Care employees with another 236 Care Medical employees will be let go from an independent team of clinicians that was charged with treating Amazon Care patients. Layoffs are scheduled for December 1, 2022.

According to a company spokesperson, “Although our enrolled members have loved many aspects of Amazon Care, it is not a complete enough offering for the large enterprise customers we have been targeting, and wasn’t going to work long-term.”

AUGUST 20, 2022 — RESTRUCTURING DISTRIBUTION

Reacting to the economic slowdown and the opening of physical stores, Amazon has canceled, closed, or delayed the opening of 49 delivery processing facilities across the United States representing more than 50.2 million square feet of warehouse space and an unknown number of employees.

APRIL 19, 2022 — AMAZON TO CLOSE THE HEBRON, KENTUCKY COVID TESTING FACILITY

The company has announced plans to close its COVID-19 employee testing facility located in Hebron, Kentucky.

Approximately 150n employees will be impacted on scheduled release dates until the facility is closed on November 1, 2022. Layoffs will commence on July 2, 2022, and the facility would be wound down through Aug. 31, 2022, until it is completely closed in November.

MARCH 2, 2022 — AMAZON TO SHUTTER ALL RETAIL BOOKSTORES AND 30 4-STAR SHOPS

Given the rising costs of maintaining a retail establishment and the decline in readers wishing to purchase over-priced books, Amazon has announced that it will be closing all 68 of its physical bookstores, pop-up locations, and 30 4-star general merchandise shops in the United States and the United Kingdom.

According to a company spokesperson, “We remain committed to building great, long-term physical retail experiences and technologies, and we’re working closely with our affected employees to help them find new roles within Amazon. The company plans to focus more on our Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods Market, Amazon Go, and Amazon Style stores — and our Just Walk Out technology,”

FEBRUARY 14, 2018 — Original post…

In what is being spun as a “rare move,” Amazon is confirming published reports of mass layoffs – approximately 500 employees working mostly in the consumer-retail division including several hundred employees at its Seattle, Washington headquarters.

Industry pundits believe that this is little more than a corporate realignment to address past performance issues, overstaffing, and additional costs related to Amazon’s rapid growth. Additional measures include a hiring freeze in some areas and lateral employee shifts within the organization. Something to be expected after eight years of accelerated growth that saw the headcount at headquarters grow from 5,000 employees in 2010 to over 40,000 currently. Due to Amazon’s amazing stock price, acquisitions appear to be happening at a faster pace and include traditional bricks-and-mortar companies like Whole Foods. It would not surprise anyone if Amazon went big-box to compete directly with Walmart and Costco.

Putting these layoffs in perspective, they are less onerous than those of Microsoft or IBM.

Amazon continues to put pressure on cities to outdo their tax and other incentives to capture the location of Amazon’s second North American headquarters (HQ2) which will mean up to 50,000 jobs. According to Amazon, the following cities are under consideration: Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Denver, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Miami, Montgomery County (Maryland), Nashville, Newark, New York City, Northern Virginia, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Raleigh, Toronto, and Washington, D.C.. According to an industry consensus, the most likely city will be one of the following: Atlanta, Raleigh, Washington D.C., Boston, or Austin.

Considerations beyond taxes, personnel availability, and cost of living, may include additional political factors such as Bezos owning the Washington Post and wanting to increase his influence in political circles. Perhaps as a consolidated purchasing solution for the government and its massive bureaucracy.

Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life or promises for a bright future. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?