Day: 14 November 2022

The job cuts will focus on the e-commerce giant’s devices unit, retail division and human resources (Picture: AP)

After the Twitter and Facebook bloodbath last week, Amazon is the latest tech giant to consider mass layoffs.

The online retail is planning to lay off about 10,000 people in corporate and technology jobs starting as soon as this week, the New York Times reported on Monday, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

The job cuts will focus on the e-commerce giant’s devices unit, which houses voice-assistant Alexa, as well as its retail division and human resources, according to the report.

The total number of layoffs is reportedly flexible but as of 31 December last year, Amazon had more than 1.6 million full-time and part-time employees.

The US tech giant founded by Jeff Bezos had recently said it would freeze hiring to its corporate workforce for the next few months.

Amazon is planning to lay off about 10,000 people this week (Picture: AP)

The news comes just weeks after Amazon warned of a slowdown in growth for the busy holiday season when it generates the highest sales, saying consumers and businesses had less money to spend due to rising prices.

Amazon is the latest US company to make deep cuts to its employee base to brace for a potential economic downturn.

Last week, Facebook-parent Meta slashed more than 11,000 jobs, or 13% of its workforce, to rein in costs. The same week, Twitter under its new CEO Elon Musk, fired about 3,700 employees in a bid to cut costs.

Other tech giants like Microsoft and Snapchat have also resorted to mass layoffs recently.

Metro.co.uk has reached out to Amazon for comment.

MORE : Amazon founder Jeff Bezos plans to give away most of £110,000,000,000 fortune

MORE : Amazon’s new warehouse robot could one day replace human workers