Amazon to layoff nearly 20,000 employees globally in coming months: Report

American e-commerce giant Amazon is planning to lay off as many as 20,000 of its employees across the company, twice more than earlier reported. According to a report from Computer World, the company will be firing 20,000 employees from its global workforce including distribution centre workers, technology staff and corporate executives. The layoffs will take place in the coming months, the report stated citing sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

This development, however, does not come as a surprise as earlier in November, Amazon  CEO Andy Jassy confirmed that the retail and cloud computing giant was preparing to lay off employees in several departments. It is pertinent to mention that the company's decision of firing people follows the mass layoffs in major tech giants including Twitter and Facebook's parent company Meta. 

The company managers have been told that they should try to identify work performance problems among employees, as part of an effort to lay off about 20,000 people, according to the Computer World report. The corporate staff have been told that the impacted employees will be sent 24-hour notice and severance pay, it added. Citing the sources, the report said that there is a sense of fear among employees following the news of laying off 20,000 people has emerged.

Amazon to continue layoffs into 2023

In November, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said that the mass layoffs will extend into next year. The company recently even offered employees a voluntary buyout under the Voluntary Separation Programme (VSP). "I’ve been in this role now for about a year and a half, and without a doubt, this is the most difficult decision we’ve made during that time (and, we’ve had to make some very tough calls over the past couple of years, particularly during the heart of the pandemic),” Jassy wrote in the memo per AP. 

Amazon's global workforce has more than 1.5 million employees composed primarily of hourly workers and the 20,000 being let go make up only 1.3% of the entire workforce and 6% of the corporate staff.

Earlier, Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos said that mass layoffs are taking place because the state of the (US) economy does not look good and the recession seems quite likely. Technically, the US is already in a recession, as two-quarters of negative growth is the determining factor and the US has already witnessed two-quarters of negative growth.