Amazon to lay off 10K employees amid 'largest job cuts' in firm's history

The job cuts are expected in Amazon's devices organization, including the voice-assistant Alexa, as well as in its retail division and in human resources

Multinational tech giant Amazon plans to lay off around 10,000 people in its corporate and technology sectors starting as soon as this week, the New York Times reported.

When executed, this would be the largest job cuts in the company’s history. 

The job cuts are expected in Amazon’s devices organisation, including the voice-assistant Alexa, as well as in its retail division and in human resources, said the report.

Laying off around 10,000 people would actually mean dismissing roughly three per cent of Amazon’s corporate employees and less than one per cent of its global work force of more than 1.5 million, which mainly consists hourly workers.

This planned retrenchment comes during the holiday season, a time when the company has valued stability in the past years. This shows how the souring global economy has pushed Amazon to trim business.

With this step Amazon will become the latest tech giants to lay off workers.

Ironically, just a few months back the e-commerce giant has more than doubled the cap on cash compensation for its tech workers, in a bid to retain its employees in competitive labour-market.

The changing business models and the looming recession in the global economy have triggered layoffs across the tech companies. 

From April-September, the company reduced its head count by almost 80,000 people, primarily reducing its hourly staff through high attrition.

Recently, Amazon closed its Amazon Care, that provided primary and urgent health care services. It also shut Scout, the cooler-size home delivery robot and Fabric.com

In September, Amazon froze hiring in several smaller teams.And in October this year, the company stopped filling more than 10,000 open roles in its core retail business. And two weeks ago, it stopped corporate hiring across for the next few months.