Amazon lays off more than 18,000 employees

The company is thus cutting significantly more jobs than previously announced.

The online mail order company Amazon is cutting more than 18,000 jobs, according to Spiegel Online reports. This is the largest job reduction in the history of the company, which was founded in 1994. At the end of 2022, Amazon was still planning to lay off 10,000 employees. Now significantly more jobs are being cut. CEO Andy Jassy announced the mass redundancies in a memo to employees.

During the pandemic and the upswing in online retail, Amazon hired significantly more employees. Most recently, around 1.5 million people worked for the online retailer. Last year, the company imposed a hiring freeze due to the uncertain economic situation. Inflation has made customers more reluctant to buy and increased costs within the company.

The poor economic situation has not only led to mass redundancies at Amazon. Other large technology companies such as Meta and Twitter are also cutting jobs.