Amazon makes fresh job cuts, mainly in retail division

SAN FRANCISCO: Amazon confirmed on Wednesday it had cut what it said were a small number of jobs, primarily ​in its Stores unit which oversees the main e-commerce website.

The ‌layoffs to its retail unit coincide with one of Amazon’s biggest shopping days, which it calls Prime Big Deal Days. The promotion started on Tuesday ​and runs through Wednesday, offering varying discounts.

The cuts are the ​latest in a series of small reductions since a larger round ⁠of 30,000 job cuts that began last year and continued into ​January.

Some affected employees reached out to Reuters and shared posts ​from internal Slack channels about the news.

Amazon let go fewer than 1,000 white-collar workers, a person familiar with the matter said. Business Insider earlier reported the layoffs.

“We’ve ​adjusted parts of our Stores business because we believe this structure ​will better enable us to deliver on our priorities,” a spokesperson said in ‌an ⁠emailed statement.

Amazon targets as many as 30,000 corporate job cuts, sources say

The internal Slack channel suggested a number of divisions within Stores were involved, including customer service and selling partner services, and possibly other units across Amazon. Employees in the US, India and the UK ​were among those ​getting pink ⁠slips.

Jeff Bezos, the founder and executive chairman of Amazon, said in a Fox News interview aired Wednesday, ​that continued job cuts have been necessary because the ​company overhired ⁠during the pandemic. “People were staying home and they were ordering, and it was an incredible, stressful period for us, by the way,” he ⁠said when ​asked about the 30,000 jobs lost in ​the previous round.

“The whole team worked extremely hard and did so much, but we ​really grew our head count.”