Amazon Web Services (AWS) is in the process of reducing its workforce again. This Amazon Layoff will reportedly impact several hundred sales and marketing team members as well as the team dedicated to developing technology for brick-and-mortar stores, according to a Bloomberg report. “We’ve identified a few targeted areas of the organisation we need to streamline in order to continue focusing our efforts on the key strategic areas that we believe will deliver maximum impact,” a spokesperson from Amazon Web Services said in a statement Wednesday, as per the report.
He mentioned that Amazon will assist these affected employees to secure alternative roles.
Last year, the sales growth at AWS, the biggest provider of leased computing power and data storage, slowed down to its lowest level ever. This happened because companies reduced their spending and postponed upgrading their technology.
These Amazon layoffs were announced approximately a year after AWS conducted its most extensive job cut to date. This initiative was undertaken as part of a cost-saving step, wherein Amazon downsized its corporate workforce by 27,000 positions following a surge in hiring during the pandemic period.
Following the large-scale layoffs, terminations have persisted in recent months, particularly affecting teams responsible for various projects such as the voice-activated Alexa assistant, the Prime Video and music division, and healthcare initiatives. Additionally, job cuts were also witnessed at Twitch, which is Amazon's internet video streaming subsidiary.
Moreover, the staff reductions extend to Amazon's store's technology team, coinciding with the company's announcement of discontinuing the Just Walk Out cashierless shopping system from Amazon Fresh grocery stores in the US and replacing it with an automated grocery cart.
The technology sector has been dealing with tough times for quite some time now, and these never-ending layoffs are a sign that things will take time to get better. According to Layoffs.fyi, a layoff tracking website, over 57,000 employees have been fired from 229 companies since the beginning of this year.