Company to chop 9,000 more staff

As we have just concluded the second phase of our operating plan (“OP2”) this past week, I’m writing to share that we intend to eliminate about 9,000 more positions in the subsequent few weeks—mostly in AWS, PXT, Promoting, and Twitch. This was a difficult decision, but one which we expect is best for the corporate long run.

Let me share some additional context.

As a part of our annual planning process, leaders across the corporate work with their teams to determine what investments they intend to make for the longer term, prioritizing what matters most to customers and the long-term health of our businesses. For several years leading as much as this one, most of our businesses added a big amount of headcount. This made sense given what was happening in our businesses and the economy as a complete. Nevertheless, given the uncertain economy by which we reside, and the uncertainty that exists within the near future, we’ve chosen to be more streamlined in our costs and headcount. The overriding tenet of our annual planning this yr was to be leaner while doing so in a way that permits us to still invest robustly in the important thing long-term customer experiences that we imagine can meaningfully improve customers’ lives and Amazon as a complete.

As our internal businesses evaluated what customers most care about, they made re-prioritization decisions that sometimes led to role reductions, sometimes led to moving people from one initiative to a different, and sometimes led to latest openings where we haven’t got the best skills match from our existing team members. This initially led us to eliminate 18,000 positions (which we shared in January); and, as we accomplished the second phase of our planning this month, it led us to those additional 9,000 role reductions (though you will notice limited hiring in a few of our businesses in strategic areas where we have prioritized allocating more resources).

Some may ask why we didn’t announce these role reductions with those we announced a pair months ago. The short answer is that not the entire teams were done with their analyses within the late fall; and moderately than rush through these assessments without the suitable diligence, we selected to share these decisions as we have made them so people had the data as soon as possible. The identical is true for this note because the impacted teams should not yet finished making final decisions on precisely which roles will probably be impacted. Once those decisions have been made (our goal is to have this whole by mid to late April), we are going to communicate with the impacted employees (or where applicable in Europe, with worker representative bodies). We’ll, after all, support those we’ve to let go, and can provide packages that include a separation payment, transitional medical health insurance advantages, and external job placement support.

If I am going back to our tenet—being leaner while doing so in a way that permits us to still invest robustly in the important thing long-term customer experiences that we imagine can meaningfully improve customers’ lives and Amazon as a complete—I feel the results of this yr’s planning cycle is a plan that accomplishes this objective. I remain very optimistic in regards to the future and the myriad of opportunities we’ve, each in our largest businesses, Stores and AWS, and our newer customer experiences and businesses by which we’re investing.

To those ultimately impacted by these reductions, I would like to thanks for the work you’ve gotten done on behalf of shoppers and the corporate. It’s never easy to say goodbye to our teammates, and also you will probably be missed. To those that will proceed with us, I look ahead to partnering with you as we make life easier for patrons daily and relentlessly inventing to accomplish that.

Andy