Layoffs hit Amazon

Amazon is planning to lay off approximately 10,000 people from its workforce this week, following the steps of other major tech companies, according to a report by The New York Times.

 

The job cuts will be focused in the company’s technology and corporate departments, which include its retail and human resources divisions and its devices division, which manufactures the popular virtual voice assistant Alexa.

 

The company also froze hiring in multiple departments such as its cloud computing and corporate division. The reported layoffs is expected to be the largest in the company’s history.

 

The Alexa and Echo devices lost $5 billion in sales in 2018, a source told the Times.

The reported layoffs would affect at least 3 percent of the company’s corporate workforce and less than 1 percent of its entire global workforce, which is around more than 1.5 million employees.