Amazon cuts 18,000 jobs, including in Europe

Amazon is cutting costs and will make more than 18,000 employees redundant in the process. Jobs would be cut mainly in physical shops and HR, including in Europe.

Alexa and robots

On 18 January at the latest, Amazon employees will hear whether they stay on board with the e-commerce giant. The American company engages in a major round of cost-cutting, as online sales have seen their unbridled growth cut short after the pandemic.

CEO Andy Jassy has not yet made clear which countries would be affected, but most jobs would disappear in physical shops – such as Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go – and in the HR department. Last November, the e-commerce giant had already quietly begun terminating a number of projects and teams. According to the BBC, redundancies included the departments for virtual assistant Alexa, for cloud gaming and for the Kindle e-reader.

Correction

The cuts are a normal phase in the growth of a “long-lived company”, Jassy stated in a message to employees. In recent years, Amazon has hired a lot of people on short notice – due to strong growth, especially during the pandemic – but companies do not need such heavy staff increases every year, the CEO believes.

Amazon had already stopped hiring new staff and expanding some warehouses as it struggles with overcapacity since the end of Covid restrictions. Plans to develop its own delivery robots are also being scrapped.