Amazon To Cut 14,000 Corporate Jobs in Early 2025, Morgan Stanley Says 47
Amazon will likely eliminate around 14,000 corporate jobs by early next year as part of ongoing efforts to reduce costs, according to a note Morgan Stanley sent to clients that Slashdot has reviewed. Brian Nowak of Morgan Stanley estimated Amazon could cut approximately 13,800 manager positions by the end of the first quarter of 2025, based on the company's stated goal of increasing the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15%.
"AMZN management's recent letter laying out an increased focus on efficiency should lead to further EBIT cushion and (potential) upside in '25," Nowak wrote. The potential headcount reduction could result in $2.1 billion to $3.6 billion in annual cost savings for Amazon, adding 3% to 5% to the company's 2025 operating profit, according to Nowak's analysis. Amazon has already cut over 27,000 jobs since late 2022 as part of a major cost-cutting push. The company employed 1.54 million people globally as of the end of June.
"AMZN management's recent letter laying out an increased focus on efficiency should lead to further EBIT cushion and (potential) upside in '25," Nowak wrote. The potential headcount reduction could result in $2.1 billion to $3.6 billion in annual cost savings for Amazon, adding 3% to 5% to the company's 2025 operating profit, according to Nowak's analysis. Amazon has already cut over 27,000 jobs since late 2022 as part of a major cost-cutting push. The company employed 1.54 million people globally as of the end of June.
Cheers ? (Score:1)
It's my fault! (Score:2)
What was the point of that FP? Was it supposed to be a joke?
Now for my attempted joke per my Subject: My boycott of Amazon started more than two decades ago after my second and final purchase. I still love books, but I saw what Amazon was and I didn't like it or want any part of it. Color me "completely unsurprised" that Amazon fires employees just because vicious anti-customers like me won't shop with Amazon.
So far the effect have been limited, but look at Exxon. My boycott of Exxon started about 20 years
.91%? (Score:1)
That's not huge. Every for-profit business ought to be looking to cull low performers and no-longer necessary jobs.
It's about the bottom line.
Re: .91%? (Score:2)
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On the other hand the only way most people can get raises is to be promoted to management.
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On the other hand the only way most people can get raises is to be promoted to management.
Maybe people should start as managers and get promoted to "picker"?
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I see a movement toward working managers. The idea of 100% people pushers is dying. If you are in an engineering org, you are engineering regardless of role.
Re:.91%? (Score:5, Insightful)
Kinda.
Place I work for went through one of these efficiency purges, only to miscalculate how many bodies they would need, and now have to offer substantial hiring bonuses just to convince people to apply, let alone retention bonuses the convince people to stay in such a death spiral. And even that has failed miserably, with the culture it took decades to foment destroyed in a few years. I'm already planning my escape.
This efficiency uber-alles thinking is the same that lead to supply issues during Covid, and businesses having to spend substantially to rethink their entire supply chains. The assumption is that there is always an endless supply of labor to draw upon, and that a company that acts this way will attract the best and brightest of a limited resource.
Best of luck with that.
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Just balance it against moral though. I'd be reluctant to work for a company that was always looking for an excuse to get rid of people.
Work from home folk... (Score:2)
Re: Work from home folk... (Score:2)
Re: Work from home folk... (Score:2)
Re:Work from home folk... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, as people here speculated - odds are the most recent "five days in the office per week" mandate was primarily intended as a stealth layoff tool.
Re: Work from home folk... (Score:2)
Makes the layoffs seem smaller Is all.
Iâ(TM)m surprised they want 1:9 manager to employee ratio. I thought for office work something like 1:5 was generally appropriate.
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Makes the layoffs seem smaller Is all.
It also saves them money - when people walk away, the company doesn't have to think about severance, etc.
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Society (Score:5, Interesting)
What sort of society would we have if those companies which routinely lay off staff were seen as poorly managed? What if layoffs were seen as an indicator that management possessed poor planning skills?
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They should be - mass layoffs mean management missed something big in the market, didn't plan for a temporary downturn, over-hired by a ridiculous amount, or is making a sudden large change in direction.
In other words... They failed to guide the company smoothly and efficiently. Management layoffs should be proportionately double, maybe triple, those of the workers.
Why can't government do this? (Score:5, Informative)
Having worked in the private sector for many decades, I have been through at least a dozen layoffs, restructurings, change in ownership, mergers, you name it. Staff cuts of 15% were routine. Yes, these were painful, but in most cases the workplace improved. Layoffs are a great way to cull the deadwood. Layoffs of managerial staff, especially.
What I have never understood is why we don't insist that public sector workers work with the same expectations of job performance and utility. It must be horrible to work every day at a job you don't believe is really needed. It must be very difficult to keep up your own end when you have to work with people who you know cannot be removed for poor performance.
To those who feel concerned about job security, etc., the absolute best job security you can have is to be good at what you do and good at helping your organization reach its goals. Those skills are 100% transferable to any workplace you can name.
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I work at a state university. During the past 12 months, our specific department has fired two different people for ongoing poor performance.
I realize it doesn't align with your internal mental narrative, but public sector workers can and do get canned when they aren't meeting expectations.
Why were they canned? (Score:2)
The danger is that it's because their students are getting the grades that the administration believes is necessary - which results in grade inflation; the kids don't deserve the marks, but you give them decent scores because your job is on the line. Or is it because they aren't publishing enough - being counted by articles in periodicals, regardless of their quality?
Or am I being too pessimistic?
To be fair I was in the public sector, and with a lot of difficulty an incompetent DBA was removed from employme
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Not my experience, but I'm glad it is yours! Did you find the workplace improved because of the removals?
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Yeah, although fortunately I wasn't the one stuck with the extra work! In both cases the teams were quite small (2 people in one, 3 in the other), so the remaining folks were slammed with the additional workload + hiring temps, posting for a permanent replacement, etc. etc.
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I work at a state university. During the past 12 months, our specific department has fired two different people for ongoing poor performance.
I realize it doesn't align with your internal mental narrative, but public sector workers can and do get canned when they aren't meeting expectations.
There is a very visible difference on this between the two environments, anecdotes notwithstanding. (I've worked in both.)
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I work at a state university. During the past 12 months, our specific department has fired two different people for ongoing poor performance.
I realize it doesn't align with your internal mental narrative, but public sector workers can and do get canned when they aren't meeting expectations.
This only happens when unions and tenure are not involved.
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the absolute best job security you can have is to be good at what you do and good at helping your organization reach its goals. Those skills are 100% transferable to any workplace you can name.
Doesn't matter how good you are when the software used to filter candidates rejects everyone [yourtango.com].
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I work for government in IT. They've cut our staffing by 50% and increased workload by 30%. Guess how well things are going.
the absolute best job security you can have is to be good at what you do and good at helping your organization reach its goals. Those skills are 100% transferable to any workplace you can name.
This is only true in a pure meritocracy, a meritocracy that ignores all business and personal considerations. In my experience, those meritocracies are rare.
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Having worked in the private sector for many decades, I have been through at least a dozen layoffs, restructurings, change in ownership, mergers, you name it. Staff cuts of 15% were routine. Yes, these were painful, but in most cases the workplace improved. Layoffs are a great way to cull the deadwood. Layoffs of managerial staff, especially.
What I have never understood is why we don't insist that public sector workers work with the same expectations of job performance and utility. It must be horrible to work every day at a job you don't believe is really needed. It must be very difficult to keep up your own end when you have to work with people who you know cannot be removed for poor performance.
To those who feel concerned about job security, etc., the absolute best job security you can have is to be good at what you do and good at helping your organization reach its goals. Those skills are 100% transferable to any workplace you can name.
be good at what you do and good at helping your organization reach its goals.
The office is a bureaucracy. Lots of people get squeezed out because of office politics. The best skill is to master is office politics. Don't get in the way of people who have the ears of people more powerful than you. Be sure to always make your manager look good and block progress of anything that undermines you. Try to get other people to do things that help you.
If you're good at what you do in the traditional sense (like a go
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> o those who feel concerned about job security, etc., the absolute best job security you can have is to be good at what you do and good at helping your organization reach its goals. Those skills are 100% transferable to any workplace you can name.
Absolute bullshit. My entire group was canned despite delivering great results and great value. They literally decided to spend more after having trained us for 5 years. and you know why? Because they wanted to "derisk" in a different European country. Meaning
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Err...why in the world would you think that?!?!?
I mean, most people out there...works SOLELY for a paycheck...money.
I mean, you don't often see people that have enough money to live as they want without having to work....continue to work, you know?
Not a lot of lottery winners out there grinding it out writing code or managing engineers.
I would think most people would dream of a good job that pays well, has job security...
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It must be horrible to work every day at a job you don't believe is really needed. It must be very difficult to keep up your own end when you have to work with people who you know cannot be removed for poor performance.
Maybe you would get more work completed if you stopped watching what everyone else was doing?
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It must be horrible to work every day at a job you don't believe is really needed. It must be very difficult to keep up your own end when you have to work with people who you know cannot be removed for poor performance.
I work a government job. None of the jobs at this place need to be done... by anyone... ever. I'd quit, but the pension is overly generous. It's a shit-ton of work, but when you take a step back and remember what the work is accomplishing for the taxpayers, it becomes clear that the job is pointless.
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the absolute best job security you can have is to be good at what you do and good at helping your organization reach its goals
In a world of meritocracy, where politics don't exist in the workplace and it's not about who you know and how much buddy-buddy you are with the upper management.
But in the real world where I'm in, I'd rather be in the public sector and find meaning in my own work, so that I can enjoy it while not worrying that I don't schmooze enough with the "right people".
Re: Why can't government do this? (Score:2)
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Just to put that into perspective (Score:4, Informative)
https://finance.yahoo.com/news... [yahoo.com]
Wow (Score:1)
Didn't they recently impose mandatory RTO? (Score:2)
Seems like another stealth layoff in the making. Now it's an actual layoff.