Amazon India Plans To Lay Off Around 1,000 Employees In India: Report

On Thursday, the company announced that it would cut more than 18,000 jobs from its workforce, citing an ‘uncertain economy' and the fact that the company ‘hired rapidly over the last several years’

E-commerce giant Amazon plans to lay off approximately 1,000 employees in India as part of its largest global retrenchment exercise, reported news agency PTI. Due to uncertain economic conditions, the company has announced the elimination of over 18,000 roles worldwide. On Thursday, the company announced that it would cut more than 18,000 jobs from its workforce, citing an ‘uncertain economy' and the fact that the retail giant has ‘hired rapidly over the last several years.’

The source told PTI, “the decision to eliminate 18,000 job roles across the globe will impact about 1,000 employees in India.” 

The report cited another source saying that in India Amazon has 1 lakh employees and the lay off decision will affect 1 per cent of its workforce in the country. 

Amazon has approximately 16,08,000 full-time and part-time staff as of December 31, 2021. 

On January 5, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy informed the company's decision to eliminate 18,000 roles across the globe. He said, “between the reductions, we made in November and the ones we're sharing today, we plan to eliminate just over 18,000 roles. Several teams are impacted; however, the majority of role eliminations are in our Amazon Stores and PXT organisations."

Amazon decided to eliminate a number of positions across devices and books businesses in November. The company also announced a voluntary reduction offer for some employees in its people, experience, and technology (PXT) organisation. 

The statement by the company added that it intends to communicate with impacted employees (or where applicable in Europe, with employee representative bodies) starting on January 18. 

The CEO said, “this year’s review has been more difficult given the uncertain economy and that we’ve hired rapidly over the last several years.”

The company announced 10,000 layoffs in November last year. Several companies starting from Twitter to Meta Platforms have slashed thousands of jobs last year, in a bid to prepare for a recession expected as a result of aggressive interest rate hikes by global central banks to curb inflation.