Amazon Kicks Off Round of Job Cuts Affecting 18,000 People (bloomberg.com) 26
Amazon has started its biggest-ever round of jobs cuts -- a culling that will ultimately affect 18,000 workers around the globe. From a report: Amazon began notifying employees by email early Wednesday, Doug Herrington, the company's worldwide retail chief, said in a memo. He said the company aimed to communicate with all laid-off workers in the US, Canada and Costa Rica by the end of the day. Notifications in China will be sent after the Chinese New Year, and in other regions the company must consult with employee representatives before finalizing layoffs. The world's largest e-commerce company is grappling with slowing online sales growth and bracing for a possible recession that could affect the spending power of its customers. Microsoft announced it was cutting 10,000 jobs Wednesday, becoming the latest in a long line of tech companies to trim its ranks.
Herrington said Amazon's cuts were part of an effort to lower costs "so we can continue investing in the wide selection, low prices and fast shipping that our customers love." He said the company would "continue investing meaningfully" in growth areas including groceries, Amazon's business-to-business sales program, services for third-party sellers and healthcare. The eliminations started last year and initially fell hardest on Amazon's Devices and Services group, which builds the Alexa digital assistant and Echo smart speakers. The latest round will mostly affect the retail division and human resources.
Herrington said Amazon's cuts were part of an effort to lower costs "so we can continue investing in the wide selection, low prices and fast shipping that our customers love." He said the company would "continue investing meaningfully" in growth areas including groceries, Amazon's business-to-business sales program, services for third-party sellers and healthcare. The eliminations started last year and initially fell hardest on Amazon's Devices and Services group, which builds the Alexa digital assistant and Echo smart speakers. The latest round will mostly affect the retail division and human resources.
haha no (Score:4, Insightful)
Herrington said Amazon's cuts were part of an effort to lower costs "so we can continue investing in the wide selection, low prices and fast shipping that our customers love."
Is there any evidence they would have had trouble turning a profit if not for the layoffs?
Re: (Score:3)
Herrington said Amazon's cuts were part of an effort to lower costs "so we can continue investing in the wide selection, low prices and fast shipping that our customers love."
Is there any evidence they would have had trouble turning a profit if not for the layoffs?
What does profit have to do with anything?
What does "so we can continue investing" have to do with anything? The same thing, obviously. The meaning of the so in "so we can..." is that they cannot do whatever comes after the can if they don't do whatever comes before the so. Once again, I'm giving elementary-level reading comprehension classes to a functional illiterate on Slashdot.
If they can handle the same amount of business for a lower labor cost, why should they not do that?
There are lots of reasons, but they are all irrelevant to this discussion, because I was specifically and only pointing out that what they were saying was a lie — n
Re:haha no (Score:4, Interesting)
Herrington said Amazon's cuts were part of an effort to lower costs "so we can continue investing in the wide selection, low prices and fast shipping that our customers love."
Is there any evidence they would have had trouble turning a profit if not for the layoffs?
Like most large corporations, the goal is not profit, at least not in absolute dollars. The goal is "shareholder return", which means stock price appreciation. That's why people are laid off, and why executives are handsomely rewarded for laying workers off. That's why billions are spent on share buybacks, a huge sum that adds zero tangible value to anything other than stock price appreciation.
New robotic warehouses are ready (Score:2)
So humans in the old warehouses have to go with the warehouses.
Still no recession though. (Score:1)
*possible* recession, got to make that clear.
Re: (Score:3)
Define "recession" is the issue.
Is it 2 consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth? If so we already had one last summer and were out of it in Q3-2022.
If not then good luck getting everyone to agree on a metric. When a term has become as politicized as "recession" has thanks to the ouroboros that is the media and political class interaction it becomes not even useless, but less than useless, it's negative discourse.
To put it mildly the economy at this moment is complicated to say the very least.
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
There's never a time when "the economy" is not complicated. The big problem is that "the economy" is being run based on a pack of lies, like inflation which is higher than claimed, like the source of inflation which is more about corporate profits than claimed, and unemployment which is way higher than claimed. Or about how there's supposedly not enough money for a UBI to work, but that's only true because of food and housing costs skyrocketing; housing costs are going up because of a pricing cartel (which
Re: (Score:3)
I'm not disagreeing with any, I agree with almost all of it, but when I say it's "complicated" I mean a lot of the prestablished notions both people and the academic class have been upended.
Inflation was high but UE has been a close to record lows and we saw decent bumps in wage growth. We're currently in a yield curve inversion but by the numbers the labor market and economic indicators are still good, contrary to what most economists would have predicted a few years ago and what history has shown. Lot
Re: (Score:1)
> "the economy" is being run based on a pack of lies, like inflation which is higher than claimed
Provide evidence please.
Re: (Score:1)
Dunning-Kruger ensures that there will be countless people who suddenly have a background in macroeconomics and public finance.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I believe the current definition of "recession" as it's being utilized by business and government alike recently is, "A nebulous concept of a future where profits are down, that we must fight against by lowering employee bargaining power, employee stake in their careers, and employee morale until they get back in line and stop thinking their work has any value to the companies they work for." Big business is essentially sick and damned tired of employees that have the temerity to believe they should be fair
Re: (Score:2)
Define "recession" is the issue.
Is it 2 consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth? If so we already had one last summer and were out of it in Q3-2022.
If not then good luck getting everyone to agree on a metric. When a term has become as politicized as "recession" has thanks to the ouroboros that is the media and political class interaction it becomes not even useless, but less than useless, it's negative discourse.
To put it mildly the economy at this moment is complicated to say the very least.
The definition of a recession was clear and agreed upon until just last year, when the media decided that it would be bad for their favored political party if a recession were declared in mid-2022. So they took it upon themselves to change the definition to "well, it's complicated, there's many possible indicators of recession, we're probably not in one right now". Just carrying water for Biden as usual.
Obligatory (Score:3, Informative)
Why not a million? (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Sabotage? (Score:2)
I keep ordering stuff that's in stock and after 7-10 days it ships UPS overnight from halfway across the country.
wtf, something is very broken.
Give a company an excuse... (Score:2)
And you will see layoffs. It's happened every recession. It has happened despite any recessionary indicators. The news controls. It's creepy, almost conspiratorial, but completely understandable.
News controls the economy ... (Score:2)
I've said it many times .... Some people disagree with me. But seems pretty obvious that if you want to cause a real recession, all you have to do is keep talking about predicting it in the media.
Companies being "proactive" with preparing for the theoretical drop in sales will always contribute to causing one when they do layoffs and restructuring that eliminates new openings.
I think, by contrast, you can positively affect the economy just by repeatedly promising people things are getting better. (The eco
Re: (Score:1)
It's pretty clear to me that we've both been overdue for a recession and there are a lot of important people who seem to want it to happen really bad. Jokes on them I plan on getting addicted to heroin the same day they lay me off and then I'll just deteriorate little by little right in front of my boss' eyes. Fuck looking for another job!
Please please sir can I have a dollar I need a dollar to live! A dollar to eat! A dollar for my poor poor dog!
Normally this would be harassment but since all kinds of
sackings cause next recession (Score:2)
Economists predict a downturn in the economy caused by mass sackings.
Tech companies said 'they were just getting in before the change',
but were actually causing the change.
Their AI modelling took into account mass sackings causing the next recession.
The rate of change in the economy is accelerated by AI.
AmazonSmile cut too (Score:3)
Just got this email: "We are writing to let you know that we plan to wind down AmazonSmile by February 20, 2023."
Re: (Score:2)
I always figured that thing was fake anyway.