Amazon Reportedly Axing Unprecedented Number of Employees, 2 Days After Bezos' Public Display of Wealth
Amazon is getting ready to terminate the jobs of about 10,000 employees, a development which fortuitously hit headlines at the same time that Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos announced his intention to give away most of his fortune throughout the remainder of his lifetime.
Amazon is mainly getting rid of corporate and technology jobs, The New York Times reported.
This is a new step that the company is taking after reviewing cost-cutting options, The Wall Street Journal reported.
According to the Journal, Amazon discovered that it has been losing about $5 billion per year in the realm of its devices, such as Alexa.
As a result, thousands of employees are likely to be let go, perhaps as soon as this week, the Times reported.
However, though 10,000 sounds like an enormous layoff, it only represents about 1 percent of Amazon’s global employment.
The Times noted that Amazon’s decisions and a slew of upcoming layoffs seem to prove that even the tech giant is feeling the pinch from global inflation and economic instability.
“Amazon’s planned retrenchment during the critical holiday shopping season — when the company typically has valued stability — shows how quickly the souring global economy has put pressure on it to trim businesses that have been overstaffed or underdelivering for years,” the Times noted.
This news from Amazon comes just as Bezos told CNN that he plans to donate his massive wealth to fighting climate change and “supporting people who can unify humanity in the face of deep social and political divisions,” the outlet reported.
Bezos’ net worth is currently about $123 billion, making him the fourth richest man on the planet, Forbes reported.
But now, Bezos and his partner Lauren Sánchez told CNN in an interview that they are “building the capacity to be able to give away this money.”
Already Bezos has committed $10 billion, over the next 10 years, to “Bezos Earth Fund,” CNN reported.
The Amazon founder added that these philanthropic efforts he is undertaking are hard work as he decides how to give his money.
“It’s not easy. Building Amazon was not easy. It took a lot of hard work, a bunch of very smart teammates, hard-working teammates, and I’m finding — and I think Lauren is finding the same thing — that charity, philanthropy, is very similar,” Bezos said.
“There are a bunch of ways that I think you could do ineffective things, too. So you have to think about it carefully and you have to have brilliant people on the team,” he told CNN.
Aside from sharing some of his philanthropic plans, Bezos also gave a general warning about the current economic climate and said in the CNN interview that business owners need to be careful and think about avoiding some risk.
“What I can tell you is, the economy does not look great right now. Things are slowing down, you’re seeing layoffs in many, many sectors of the economy, people are slowing down … my advice to people, whether they’re small business owners … is take some risk off the table,” Bezos said.
Bezos did not comment on the coincidence that Amazon is planning to lay off thousands of employees, just as he noted that the economy is slowing.
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